The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced it plans to negotiate with Accenture Federal Services the terms of a contract estimated at $70 million for work on the agency’s Patent Search Artificial Intelligence (PSAI) capabilities.
The contract will ask that the contractor provide full system development efforts for the PSAI while simultaneously providing enhancements to the PSAI components.
“The USPTO currently has AI capabilities built into the Patents End-to-End (PE2E) Search tool for more than 9,000 examiners and supervisors to improve prior art search,” the agency said.
The contract will be active for five years during which Accenture will be required to supply unified and robot solutions to the agencies PE2E search tool that will replace legacy search tools including the Examiner’s Automated Search Tool (EAST), Web-based Examiner Search Tool (WEST).
“The USPTO publicized this requirement on August 8, 2023 through a Request for Information on SAM.Gov, and the results indicate that Accenture Federal Services is the only known qualified source,” stated the agency.
USPTO said it expects to award the contract on April 1.
