Charting the Course: Future-Proofing Your AI-Based Medical Technology IP

The promise of AI has captured imaginations across medical technology – serving up visions of robotic pharmacists dispensing medications and AI-guided implants delivering therapies. But competitive forces threaten to hijack the value of bold innovation.

Already the land grab is accelerating, with tech titans and emerging players racing to stockpile foundational patents around machine learning methods and critical data sets. Recent patent filings around medical imaging reveal techniques for using AI to enhance ultrasound, detect tumors in MRI scans, and diagnose conditions from retinal analyses. Patent filings for AI software more than doubled from 2002 to 2018. For AI software to be patentable, it must be novel and inventive. By 2020, USPTO had received about 80,000 patent applications for AI software and approved 77% of them.

For medical device companies navigating uncertain waters, future-proofing your AI-based medical technology IP strategy is key:

Preparing Patent Armories

Crafting provisional applications for early-stage AI innovations plants stakes early while buying time for design refinements before higher-cost filings. Multi-prong approaches – both offensive and defensive – including copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets further fortify.

Evaluating Defensive Aggregation

Cross-licensing arrangements or defensive pools allow jointly building enforcement buffers against litigation – but require careful setup. Additional patent purchasing to shore vulnerable aspects may also strategically align.

Planning for Valuation Inflection

As with previous disruptive shifts like smartphones, the tidal wave of AI promises to elevate patent influence dramatically across healthcare and medical technology. Evaluating in-house IP Rights accordingly will pay dividends.

With AI-based medical technology promising extraordinary healthcare advances, the question becomes – will your patents shape the future, or fade away in the noise of innovation? At Global Patent Solutions, our analysts and consultants equip clients to not just weather gathering storms, but harness gale forces to their strategic advantage. The journey ahead remains unwritten – will you pick up the pen?

This article is the last article in a 4-part blog series focused on the intellectual property impacts of AI in medical devices. To start the series at the beginning, click here.

If you would like a complimentary copy of our Report “State of AI-Based Medical Device Patents: 2024”, contact us at robb.evans@GPS-IP.com. If you are interested, instead, in similar information related to a different industry, you can also contact Robb at the same email address.