Replacing guesswork
Using CoCounsel Legal, Sterne Kessler co-developed an AI tool that makes patent eligibility assessments much more reliable — and faster, too
Chosen by changemakers
For decades, lawyers have relied on guesswork to determine whether a patent is likely to be granted or is able to withstand challenges — until now
Section 101 of the U.S. Patent Act, which determines patent eligibility, is one of the most volatile and hard-to-predict areas in intellectual property (IP) law. The stakes are enormous — for a startup, an adverse 101 ruling can be company-ending. For an enterprise, hundreds of millions of dollars could be lost. Traditional patent analysis has relied on attorney intuition and labor-intensive research. Thomson Reuters and Sterne Kessler set out to change that with the Patent Claim Eligibility Analyzer, an AI-powered workflow within CoCounsel Legal that brings data-driven analysis to one of patent law’s most unpredictable areas.
Meet the firm
Based in Washington, D.C., Sterne Kessler is a leading intellectual property law firm providing strategic IP services worldwide. With more than 170 attorneys, the firm delivers integrated capabilities across patent and trademark prosecution, strategic counseling, post-grant proceedings, and litigation services before federal district and appellate courts and the International Trade Commission. Since 1978, Sterne Kessler has helped innovative companies, startups, inventors, universities, and investors protect, enforce, and maximize the value of their IP.
Daniel Block, a software developer who became an IP litigator, is a Director in Sterne Kessler’s Electronics Practice Group. He is the leader of the firm’s AI initiatives, including Sterne Kessler Labs.
A true partnership
Thomson Reuters and Sterne Kessler co-developed the Patent Claim Eligibility Analyzer, an AI-powered workflow within CoCounsel Legal that assesses §101 patent eligibility risk. Thomson Reuters engineers worked alongside IP practitioners, inspired by Sterne Kessler’s litigation playbooks, to develop a tool that uses semantic claim-to-case matching to compare patent claims against Federal Circuit decisions and surface the most relevant precedents with greater accuracy than keyword searches alone.
Block and Sterne Kessler’s AI team started with a hypothesis: Federal Circuit judges rely heavily on past precedent, and the best way to predict how a court will rule on a §101 challenge is to find how closely prior case claims resemble the claims at issue. Working hand in hand with Thomson Reuters engineers, they built a tool to prove it.
The tools Sterne Kessler used
CoCounsel Legal
Built on advanced AI capabilities, CoCounsel Legal helps firms complete research, drafting, and document analysis with speed and precision. This is Fiduciary-Grade AI™, with verified outputs grounded in authoritative content and customer context built directly into the architecture.
Westlaw
As the industry leader for legal research, Westlaw offers platforms and tools including Westlaw Edge, Westlaw Edge with AI-Assisted Research, Westlaw Advantage, and more. It’s trusted by more than 48,000 law firms and legal departments, including 80% of the AM Law 100.
Patent Claim Eligibility Analyzer
The workflow lives inside CoCounsel Legal, comparing claims against Federal Circuit decisions, ranking by relevance, and accelerating analysis. Every citation links directly to Westlaw, pairing Sterne Kessler’s litigation playbooks with Thomson Reuters content.
“What separates competitors in today’s world is not your AI or technology, but how you use and deploy it. That’s what makes this changemaking.”
Daniel Block
Director
Risk assessed, argument built, patent eligibility strengthened
How Sterne Kessler is creating ripple effects across attorney workflows, firm strategy, and the future of patent law
Turning a weeklong process into one that takes just minutes
Thomson Reuters and Sterne Kessler have fundamentally changed workflows for IP attorneys, who benefit from faster, claim-specific starting points; reduced manual research; litigation-ready arguments; and a head start on brief writing.
Reducing brief-writing costs
Revamped workflows reshape how cases are managed from day one. Attorneys can analyze §101 risk before a client engages, bringing data into business development conversations and improving the economics of taking on certain cases.
Expanding access to data-driven patent analysis
Jurisprudence under §101 has long faced criticism for inconsistency, shaped more by instinct than evidence. Integrating Sterne Kessler’s workflow into CoCounsel Legal helps clients without top-tier resources make more data-driven decisions.
Setting a new standard for patent eligibility analysis
Thomson Reuters and Sterne Kessler have created a new standard for patent eligibility analysis, which means faster answers grounded in evidence rather than instinct and a higher degree of confidence in the analysis. “This is the perfect blueprint in this new AI world,” Block said. “Sterne Kessler has the legal know-how and analysis skills, and Thomson Reuters has over a century of data content, data analytics expertise, and Fiduciary-Grade AI. Leveraging these complementary competencies, we were able to build a tool that solves a real-world and complex issue that IP attorneys deal with day in and day out.”
“We have a client in the media space that was sued on a patent. We used the tool to respond with a motion to dismiss without even asking for an extension — something that has never happened at any other point in my career. That speed showed the plaintiff how aggressive our client was willing to be, and our client received a very favorable outcome.”
Daniel Block
Director
CoCounsel Legal
A Fiduciary-Grade AI solution grounded in Westlaw authority and Practical Law expertise
As AI moves from experimentation into everyday professional use, a higher standard is required. CoCounsel Legal uses Fiduciary-Grade AI to guide attorneys through complex legal work from start to finish, enabling firms to move seamlessly from legal research and case strategy to drafting and document analysis — all in one continuous workflow.
2x
Organizations with an AI adoption strategy are twice as likely to achieve revenue growth, expanding their competitive advantage.**
85%
Nearly all users find more key information with advanced review and analysis tools, enabling better, faster decisions.*
2.6x
More than double the speed on document review and contract drafting, enabling attorneys to focus on higher-value work.*
* Time savings data from Thomson Reuters customer surveys and U.S. usage data, 2024
** Thomson Reuters Future of Professionals Report 2025
CoCounsel Legal helps get things done
Changemakers
Find out why Thomson Reuters is chosen by changemakers
Thomson Reuters is an AI and technology company empowering professionals with trusted content and workflow automation to know now and navigate what’s next. As the future arrives faster than ever, we’re standing alongside professionals, ready to fulfill our purpose: to inform the way forward.
Learn what other changemakers are doing
Case study
How The Innocence Center triples filings to free wrongfully convicted
Case study
Zarwin Baum experiences the transformative power of GenAI in CoCounsel
Case study
.png){kind=logo}
