The Problem: The Clock Starts the Day the Complaint Drops
ITC Section 337 proceedings move faster than district court patent litigation. The ALJ's scheduling order establishes respondent deadlines that can compress the claim charting work into a window that doesn't fit the traditional model of associates working through prior art cite-by-cite. When 14 patents are asserted and 200 prior art references need to be mapped against each claim element, the manual approach produces two problems: it takes longer than the schedule allows, and it tends to miss cross-reference patterns across the prior art record that affect IPR filing strategy.
How an AI Agent Approaches It
An AI Labor Company agent works across Relativity, Westlaw Edge, Anaqua, and iManage to produce complete claim charts for all 14 asserted patents with element-by-element prior art mapping. Each chart is tagged and exhibits are loaded into Relativity for attorney review. Beyond the charts, the agent produces a defensibility heat map that surfaces which claims are most vulnerable to IPR challenge based on the prior art record — giving the respondent team a structured basis for deciding where to file IPR petitions and where to focus invalidity arguments for the ITC proceeding itself.
What This Is Worth
ITC Section 337 defense budgets run $100K–$350K per complaint, and claim charting is one of the most labor-intensive phases. This use-case is primarily a capacity and speed story: an agent can compress the claim charting timeline significantly, typically reducing the attorney and paralegal hours devoted to initial charting by 45–65%. That reclaimed capacity matters in ITC proceedings specifically, because the schedule forces simultaneous work across claim construction, discovery, and expert witness preparation. The agent is live and producing complete charts in roughly 10 weeks — well within most ALJ scheduling windows for respondent preparation milestones.
Are the AI-generated claim charts attorney-review-ready, or do they require significant rework?
The charts are structured for attorney review and revision, not direct filing. They provide complete element-by-element mapping as a first draft — the IP litigation team reviews, annotates, and finalizes before any use in ITC proceedings or IPR petitions.
How does the defensibility heat map inform IPR filing decisions?
The heat map scores each asserted claim against the prior art record on strength of anticipation and obviousness arguments. It's an analytical tool to help counsel prioritize which claims are worth challenging via IPR versus which are better contested on non-infringement grounds at the ITC.