Highlights From our First AI in IP Event in Stockholm

Think of AI as a navigation system for IP work. It can calculate routes, process vast amounts of information, and suggest the fastest way forward. But someone still has to decide the destination, and stay in the driving seat when the route changes. That question, of where AI’s capabilities end, and human judgment begins, was at the center of our first event in a new series co-hosted in partnership with Uppdragshuset: Staying Valuable in the Age of AI, held in early September in Stockholm.

The event took place at Uppdragshuset’s shared office space on the southern side of Stockholm, a Nordic minimalist setting with good public transport connections and views out over the city. More than 40 IP professionals attended, drawn from a cross section of Sweden’s leading innovation companies, IP consultancies, and law firms.

The day began with lunch at around 12:30 pm, followed by an afternoon program , moderated throughout by Silvan Berg, Head of Customer Success at LexisNexis^® Intellectual Property Solutions. Speakers included Katarina Wendin, Margareta Ydreskog, and Joni Sayeler. The event closed with a Lebanese dinner and continued networking.

Staying Valuable in the Age of AI was the first event of what LexisNexis and Uppdragshuset intend to build into a recurring series of Nordic IP gatherings. A follow-up event, likely in Copenhagen or Malmö, is tentatively planned for later in November, with details still to be confirmed.

AI helps in IP management lifecycle, but still human-led

Katarina Wendin, Co-Founder and Partner, Kapea

Katarina Wendin, who led IP at ASSA ABLOY until the end of August 2026 and has since returned to her co-founded IP consultancy Kapea, opened the program by reminding everyone that not every aspect of IP work can be systematized.

Katarina Wendin
Founder and Partner
Kapea

Innovation is messy, it is dynamic.

Drawing on her time at ASSA ABLOY, Wendin described how responsibility for patent asset management has shifted from the group level to the divisions and subsidiaries themselves, a structural change that puts IP judgment closer to where business decisions are actually made. She also pointed to how far AI has already permeated across the IP function, from landscaping through to competitive benchmarking and risk management, but was clear that the IP professional still needs to drive that process: not just technically, but in how it is communicated to and understood by non-specialist stakeholders across the business.

Key takeaways:

• AI is not entirely taking over all IP functions. Human intelligence and expertise continue to play a major role in critical decision making.
• AI is already in use across the IP lifecycle: landscaping, competitive benchmarking, and risk management.
• The IP professional’s role increasingly includes translating AI-driven insight for non-specialist stakeholders, not just running the tools.

Asking the right “whys” before calling in AI

Silvan Berg, Head of Customer Success, EMEA and South Asia, LexisNexis^® Intellectual Property Solutions

As moderator for the afternoon, Silvan also introduced his own framework for how AI fits into IP consultancy work: “the five whys”. His argument was straightforward. Before AI can be useful, someone has to correctly diagnose the problem. That means repeatedly asking why, whether the IP strategist is internal or external to the organization, until the real issue surfaces.

Silvan Berg
Head of Customer Success, EMEA and South Asia
LexisNexis Intellectual Property Solutions

If you cannot ask the right whys, you cannot define the problem that needs to be solved.

Only once that problem is properly framed, Silvan argued, should AI be brought in to help answer it. It is a sequencing point rather than a rejection of AI: the human still has to ask the right question before the machine can be useful in answering it.

Key takeaways:

• The five whys is a diagnostic technique for identifying the real problem before applying any AI tool.
• Problem definition is a human task; AI’s usefulness begins only once that framing is done.
• The approach applies equally to internal IP teams and external consultants.

Margareta Ydreskog: Exploring fast, but keeping judgment human

Margareta Ydreskog, Patent Manager, Epiroc

Margareta Ydreskog, who heads the patent IP function at the rock drilling and mining equipment company Epiroc, gave one of the day’s most candid assessments of where organizations actually stand today. Epiroc, she said, is “at the exploration phase when it comes to the application of AI at the moment.” She also noted how far the tools have moved in a short time, describing a substantial shift in capability over just the last eight to ten months.

Margareta Ydreskog
Patent Manager
Epiroc

The machine takes the task, and we create or make the judgment.

Key takeaways:

• Epiroc is still in the exploration phase of applying AI to IP work, but progress has accelerated markedly over the past 8 to 10 months.
• The machine takes on the task, and humans make the judgment, capturing where she sees the clear line between AI and human responsibility.

Joni Sayeler: Why the human searcher still matters

Joni Sayeler, CEO, Uppdragshuset

Joni Sayeler, CEO of the IP strategy and search consultancy Uppdragshuset, closed the program with a discussion of what is happening to the IP search profession itself: a declining number of professional searchers alongside a growing number of tools claiming to do their job.

Sayeler’s case for the human searcher rested on three things: expert knowledge, the ability to recognize when results are inconsistent, and the discipline to cross-check outputs across several tools rather than trusting a single one. Large language models, in particular, are not always consistent, something that becomes obvious the moment the same search criteria are run through two different models and the results compared.

Key takeaways:

• The number of professional IP searchers is declining even as the number of available tools increases.
• Human value lies in recognizing inconsistent AI outputs and knowing when to cross-check across multiple tools.
• LLM search results can vary meaningfully between models on identical criteria, a gap that still needs human judgment to catch.

Where does this leave the IP professional?

Across all four sessions, the speakers agree that AI is taking on more of the execution: the searching, drafting, benchmarking, and pattern spotting that used to consume much of an IP professional’s day. What it cannot do is decide why any of the results from these matters: which problem is worth solving, which result can be trusted, which route makes sense once circumstances change. That is still messy and dynamic work, and it still needs a person in the driving seat.

These conversations reflect a broader shift in how intellectual property is evolving. We go deeper into this topic in our AI in IP Report, featuring perspectives from Ruud Peters (former Chief IP Officer, Philips), Bowman Heiden (former advisor to the European Commission), Sakae Nakamura (pioneer in IP landscaping and strategy), and other leading IP practitioners on how to navigate AI’s impact on the patent system, the IP profession, and strategic patent intelligence.

To stay updated on this series and other LexisNexis^® Intellectual Property Solutions events, subscribe to our newsletter and follow LexisNexis Intellectual Property Solutions on LinkedIn.

Meet
Protégé in PatentSight+™

Your AI assistant for fast, decision-ready patent insights that drive strategic business decisions.

Request a Demo