How IP lawyers use Justis AI

The problem

The examination report raises two objections: the mark is said to be descriptive under section 9, and three earlier marks are cited under section 11. The reply is due within a month, and it has to meet each objection on its own terms, with evidence of use where acquired distinctiveness is the answer.

Section 11 citations are where replies go wrong. The comparison has to be of the marks as a whole, their appearance, sound and idea, with the goods, the trade channels and the purchasers, not a list of differing letters.

How Justis handles it

Justis reads the report, the application and the cited marks' details, and answers each objection separately. For a section 9 objection it argues the mark as suggestive where the record supports it and marshals the evidence of use. For each section 11 citation it compares the marks as a whole and the goods, and says honestly which citations are hard to overcome.

It drafts the reply in Word in your format, with the grounds, the authority for each and the list of documents to file with it, and computes the reply date from the date the report was received.

The problem

A competitor's mark appears in the Trade Marks Journal. The notice of opposition under section 21 must be filed within four months of the advertisement, and the grounds have to be pleaded then: similarity under section 11, bad faith, prior use, and the mark's lack of distinctiveness.

On the other side, an applicant served with an opposition has two months to file the counter-statement, and missing that date means the application is treated as abandoned. The evidence stages that follow each have their own clock.

How Justis handles it

Justis reads the Journal extract, the client's registrations and evidence of use, and drafts the notice of opposition with each ground tied to a fact and a document. For an applicant, it reads the notice and drafts the counter-statement, answering each ground and pleading the applicant's own use.

It computes every date from the documents in the project and keeps them in the matter's schedule, and when the evidence stage comes it builds the affidavit from the use evidence, with the exhibits indexed.

The problem

A client with two hundred marks across twenty classes, and a handful of patents, moves its work to you. The records arrive as registration certificates, renewal receipts, examination reports and a spreadsheet last updated two years ago.

A trade mark registration lasts ten years and can be renewed within the year before it expires; after that there is a short window with a surcharge and then restoration. Patent renewal fees fall due every year. A date missed in a portfolio this size is almost always a date nobody extracted.

How Justis handles it

Justis reads every certificate, receipt, report and notice in the matter and builds the portfolio grid: mark or patent, class, status, the last action and the next date that matters, each with the document and page it was read from.

It flags the entries where the documents disagree with the spreadsheet, the marks with no renewal on file, and the applications with an open action. The grid exports to Excel. It is a working view of your documents, not a docketing system of record.

The problem

The First Examination Report objects that the claims lack inventive step over two cited documents, and that the main claim is a computer programme per se under section 3(k). The response period is six months from the date of the report, extendable by three, and the application is deemed abandoned if nothing is filed.

An obviousness objection is answered element by element. Which feature of the claim does each citation actually disclose, and is there any reason a skilled person would have combined them?

How Justis handles it

Justis reads the specification, the claims, the FER and the cited documents, and maps each claim element against what each citation discloses, with the column or paragraph. The elements no citation discloses are marked as gaps, and those are where the argument and any amendment start.

It drafts the response with the argument on inventive step, the technical effect relied on against the section 3(k) objection, and proposed claim amendments shown as tracked changes, supported by the specification as filed.

The problem

The client finds a competitor selling a product under a similar mark in a similar get-up. The question is whether to send a notice or go straight to court for an interim injunction, and the answer depends on the evidence: the registration, the length and extent of use, the similarity, and how quickly the client has acted.

An infringement suit under section 29 of the Trade Marks Act needs a registration. Passing off does not, but it needs proof of goodwill and misrepresentation. A commercial suit seeking urgent interim relief can be filed without pre-institution mediation, but only if the urgency is real.

How Justis handles it

Justis reads the client's registrations and use evidence, the photographs of the competing product and any correspondence, and compares the marks and the get-up. It sets out the case for infringement and for passing off, and grades the interim injunction factors, prima facie case, balance of convenience and irreparable harm, with the evidence for each.

It drafts the cease and desist notice or the plaint and the interim application, with the jurisdiction pleaded, the evidence indexed and the authorities linked to the paragraph.

The problem

An investor is paying for the target's brand, software and content, and the diligence has to show the target actually owns them. The marks may be registered in a founder's name, the software may have been written by contractors with no assignment, and the content may have been licensed for a period that has run out.

Under the Copyright Act the author is the first owner unless an exception applies, an assignment must be in writing, and an assignment that does not state its period or territory is read as five years and India. Each of those can mean the target owns less than it thinks.

How Justis handles it

Tabular review asks the same questions of every agreement, certificate and assignment in the data room: what IP it covers, who owns it, whether the assignment is in writing, its period and territory, and whether it is recorded. Each answer comes back as a cited cell.

Justis then lists the ownership gaps, ranked by what they mean for the deal, and drafts the confirmatory assignments and the conditions precedent to close them.

The problem

A brand licence, a technology licence and a content licence cross the desk in the same week, each on the other side's paper. The points that matter repeat: scope and exclusivity, quality control, sublicensing, royalty and audit, improvements, termination and what happens to stock on termination.

Quality control is not a formality in a trade mark licence: a licence with no control over the goods can weaken the mark itself. Recording a registered user or an assignment with the registry is a separate step that is easily forgotten.

How Justis handles it

Write your positions down once as a playbook, licensor side and licensee side. Justis reads each licence against it, flags every departure, and proposes the change as a tracked edit, with a short note on why.

It also checks what the statute asks of the document, such as writing and the terms of an assignment under the Copyright Act, and lists the filings to make with the registry after signing.

The problem

The client receives a notice from a rival's advocates: stop using the mark in seven days, destroy the stock, pay damages. The notice is written to frighten, and it usually leaves things out: when the rival actually started, what its own registration covers, and any condition the Registry put on it.

The reply has to be firm and accurate. If the client is itself registered, section 28(3) and section 30(2)(e) answer an infringement claim between two registered proprietors; prior use answers the rest. A reply that overstates the client's case, or misses that the client's own registration is about to expire, gives the other side its opening.

How Justis handles it

Justis reads the notice with the client's registration and use evidence, sets out each allegation against what the documents show, and checks both registrations: dates, goods, user claims and any limitation entered on the register.

It drafts the reply in Word, denying what is wrong, asserting the client's registration, prior use and the descriptive meaning of the word, and reserving the remedy for groundless threats under section 142. It lists what the client must do now, starting with any renewal that falls due.

The problem

The client is taking an exclusive licence of a start-up's patents and know-how on the licensor's paper. The royalty runs for ten years whatever happens to the patents, the licensee must buy components from the licensor, every improvement the licensee makes goes to the licensor for nothing, and the licensee may never challenge a patent.

Some of this is not merely one-sided. Section 140 of the Patents Act makes void a condition requiring the licensee to buy unpatented articles from the licensor, an exclusive grant-back and a bar on challenging validity. Section 141 lets either party end the licence once the patent ceases. And a licence not registered under section 69 is not evidence of the licensee's interest.

How Justis handles it

Justis reads the draft with the patent register extracts, checks the status and expiry of every licensed patent, and marks up the licence as tracked changes from the licensee's side, with a comment on each change giving the commercial reason or the provision that makes the clause void.

It proposes royalty that steps down as patents lapse or expire, a licensor warranty and indemnity, and a clause for registering the licence, and lists what the client should raise on the call.

The problem

The brand team wants a new mark filed this week and sends an intake sheet. Form TM-A asks for things the sheet gets loosely or wrongly: the applicant's category for the fee, every class the goods fall in, a user date the evidence supports, the colours claimed and a translation of any Hindi word.

Each slip costs something later. A wrong fee category means a deficiency; a user date earlier than the first invoice is a claim the client will have to prove on affidavit; an app filed in class 11 because the purifiers are in class 11 leaves the app unprotected.

How Justis handles it

Justis fills the blank Word form from the intake sheet field by field, checks each entry against the evidence the sheet cites, and puts a comment on every field where it departed from the sheet and why.

It drafts the specification of goods in Nice terms class by class, the description of the mark and the colour claim, computes the fee, and lists what is still needed before filing, such as the affidavit of use. Filing on the e-filing system stays with you.

The problem

A competitor writes alleging that the client's smart fan infringes its patent. The claims as granted are only half the story. To get the patent, the patentee narrowed claim 1, told the Controller what its invention was not, and deleted a claim at the hearing. Those statements are in the file wrapper, and they bear on what the claims can now be read to cover.

The file wrapper also shows what the patentee did not narrow. A method claim left untouched may still read on the client's product, and the argument note has to say so plainly, with the answer: the prior art, and a counterclaim for revocation.

How Justis handles it

Justis reads the file wrapper page by page with the client's technical note, traces each claim from filing to grant, and lists every amendment and statement the patentee made, with the page. It then compares the client's product with each asserted claim, element by element.

It writes the argument note in Word: non-infringement where the prosecution history supports it, the exposure where it does not, the grounds for revocation under section 64 to consider, and the questions for the client's engineers.

The problem

Before a patent application goes further, or a technology is licensed or sold, the client has to show it owns what its people made. The agreements were signed over five years on different forms: some employees assign everything, some only what they make in office hours, a consultant promised to assign on request and was never asked, and one signed copy cannot be found.

The law treats each differently. An employer owns copyright in an employee's work made in the course of employment, but not a consultant's. A patent needs a chain of title from every inventor. And a copyright assignment that does not state its period or territory is read under section 19 as five years and India.

How Justis handles it

Tabular review asks the same questions of every agreement: who and in what role, the assignment wording, the scope of IP covered and any limit, period and territory, execution, and the risk to the client. Each cell quotes the clause it relies on.

Justis then ranks the gaps and drafts the confirmatory assignments, including a specific assignment of the invention from any inventor whose agreement does not reach it.