Learn How to Harness AI at the 2025 Annual Meeting: An Interview With Stacy Grossman

Stacy Grossman (SGIP, USA)

Today is the era of artificial intelligence (AI). With businesses across all sectors exploring the potential of AI, it should come as no surprise that intellectual property (IP) professionals are keen to understand and embrace the opportunities offered by this new technology.

From trademark searching, and monitoring and enhancing descriptions of goods/services in trademark applications, to automating the trademark application process and analyzing discovery in trademark litigation, there are myriad applications for AI in the trademark realm.

But with opportunity also comes potential risk, something that IP professionals must stay abreast of to ensure they can reap the rewards of this rapidly advancing technology.

At the upcoming 2025 Annual Meeting, Stacy Grossman (SGIP, USA) will moderate the panel discussion for Harnessing AI: Innovative Strategies and Practical Applications for Trademark Practitioners. This dynamic session will explore various ways that IP professionals can leverage AI in their practice to improve efficiency and reduce costs.

Ms. Grossman sat down with the INTA Bulletin to discuss how practitioners can embrace an increasingly sophisticated technology while navigating around the challenges often associated with the use of AI and various emerging ethical dilemmas.

Over the past five years, how has AI become more sophisticated and its use expanded, particularly with regard to the trademark world? 
In the past five years, AI has advanced in many areas, but the ones that strike me the most are generative AI (deep-learning models that can generate high-quality content) and natural language processing (a computer program’s ability to understand human language and generate realistic interactions).

In the trademark world, practitioners can ask AI questions like: “Can you generate a robust description of goods for a trademark application in Class 25 that covers clothing?” or “What is the law in France with respect to trademark infringement?” The answers could provide a helpful head start in your practice.

However, right now, one of the biggest challenges with AI is trust. People are still learning about these tools, but they don’t know whether there are confidentiality issues or whether the information that the AI is sharing is reliable.

So, people are using the technology in a reluctant fashion, or dabbling in it, but then redoing the work after to ensure it’s correct—and so not really saving any time! I suspect that, in the next five years, there’ll be further developments and more tools so we can confidently rely on AI.

Trademark professionals have begun to leverage AI in their practice to improve efficiency and reduce costs. How can leveraging AI in your trademark practice benefit your company/clients?
Although it shouldn’t be used to substitute a lawyer’s judgment, AI tools can be used to cut down on the time it takes to complete tasks—both legal and administrative.

One of the things we looked at when preparing for the panel is how companies and law firms are actually using AI. Currently, the main use is for the analysis of documents. AI can be used much more efficiently than a reader to pull certain documents out of bundles or to summarize documents. With emails, AI can distill information.

But it’s not yet as good at creating work products. It’s less reliable where judgment and legal experience are required, such as drafting office action responses. That’s where lawyers still need to do the heavy lifting.

At some point, law firms might have closed generative AI systems that can be a repository of firm information, such as legal briefs, office action responses, descriptions of goods and services, research memoranda, and more.

With such a system, someone can prompt the system to draft an office action response arguing against a refusal to register a mark based on likelihood of confusion, and the AI system would be able to generate a draft. AI can also be used to expedite tasks like billing.

Could you share some insights on how AI has helped make your organization more efficient?
We’re working with a lot of vendors who are incorporating AI into their software and products to improve their services, and we’re benefitting from technology developments in this way. For example, trademark search vendors are using AI tools to improve the results.

Deploying AI in your practice can offer a range of benefits. However, challenges can also arise. What advice would you offer trademark professionals on managing these challenges?
The biggest challenges right now center around confidentiality and reliability. It is a danger to use an open AI system (such as ChatGPT) for client work and risk training an open system with confidential information.

On the reliability side, AI is only as good as it has been trained, so lawyers shouldn’t blindly rely on output. Another challenge is training: not all practitioners are experienced at creating prompts to generate the best results, and firms and in-house legal teams need to develop policies on acceptable use of AI.

Ethical dilemmas and concerns around the use of AI appear to be mounting. What ethical issues should trademark professionals be considering?
For fun, I asked ChatGPT this question: “What are the ethical dilemmas of law firms using AI?”  It provided a robust response:

• Client Confidentiality and Data Security: AI tools process vast amounts of sensitive client data, raising concerns about breaches, unauthorized access, or misuse.
• Bias and Fairness: AI models can inherit biases from their training data, potentially leading to unfair outcomes in legal research, case predictions, or sentencing recommendations.
• Competence and Oversight: Lawyers must ensure AI-generated advice is accurate, but over-reliance on AI may lead to errors if not properly supervised.
• Unauthorized Practice of Law: Some AI tools provide legal guidance that may border on unauthorized practice, raising ethical and regulatory concerns.
• Transparency and Explainability: Many AI models function as “black boxes,” making it difficult to explain legal reasoning, which is crucial for due process and client trust.

Your Annual Meeting session is titled Harnessing AI: Innovative Strategies and Practical Applications for Trademark Practitioners. What is one thing that you hope registrants take away from this session?
We have a great panel consisting of an in-house lawyer, a big law lawyer, and a technologist, and they’re going to address how practitioners can look to harness AI for their practices.

We hope participants will walk away with concrete action items they can bring back to their office and daily work, including new tools to investigate, pitfalls to consider, and tips for developing AI use policies. Registrants will also receive guidance on the policies law firms and in-house legal departments need to adopt to ensure that their teams aren’t misusing AI.

People are constantly learning about AI. INTA has been hosting AI-focused sessions for some time now, but the technology is constantly developing. Registrants really do need to keep learning and stay abreast of the different tools in order to keep up, because AI is not going away or staying the same!

Changing the topic a little with a final question: You founded your law firm in 2014. What advice do you have for those looking to start their own law firms?
Starting and growing my firm has been a remarkable experience and is a source of great pride. Someone thinking of starting their own firm should realize that in addition to the legal work, they have to be an entrepreneur—learning how to get business, deal with billing, HR, insurance, marketing, and more. I’m glad that I took the plunge, but it might not be for everyone.

Learn more and register for the 2025 Annual Meeting.  Early-bird registration closes Friday, March 14.

Although every effort has been made to verify the accuracy of this article, readers are urged to check independently on matters of specific concern or interest. Law & Practice updates are published without comment from INTA except where it has taken an official position.

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