- Gowling WLG specialises in brand protection, a normally arduous task.
- The company uses a proprietary AI system called Saturn to identify trademark and brand infringements.
- This article is “CXO AI Playbook” — Business leaders speak candidly about how they’re testing and using AI.
In “CXO AI Playbook,” Business Insider highlights mini-stories about AI adoption across industries, company sizes, and technology DNA. We asked each featured company to tell us the problems they're trying to solve with AI, who is making those decisions within their company, and their vision for the future of AI.
Gowling WLG is a multinational law firm headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, with more than 1,500 lawyers across 20 offices worldwide.
The firm was formed in 2016 through the merger of a Canadian company with a history dating back to 1887 and a UK-based law firm. One of the company's specialties is brand protection, which tracks and stops infringements on a company's trademarks, brands, or designs.
Situation analysis: What problem were they trying to solve?
Businesses need to protect their trademarks, but not all cases of infringement are the same, and each case requires different responses.
“Reputation is key for global brands and businesses need to avoid the risk of negative PR that can arise from going after small-scale infringers or enthusiasts,” Goring WLG said. John Coldham, Partner and Co-Head of the Global Trademarks, Brands and Design Team, said: he told Business Insider.
However, the process is very time-consuming. “Traditionally, a trainee, writing student, or new employee would search the internet for online infringers, file individual takedown notices, and manually enter everything throughout the process.” Coldham said. “It took forever and we could only deal with a few violations at a time.”
Speeding up processes and making them more efficient helps companies scale their operations, and the company concluded that the best way to speed up tasks was to use AI, so it developed a system it calls Saturn.
Key staff and partners
The Saturn project was led by Gowling WLG’s trademark, brand and design team and Khemi Salhan, principal associate in the UK team.
The system was developed in conjunction with a third-party provider, which Gowling WLG declined to name. This service is currently coordinated and supervised by Gowling WLG's intellectual property lawyers.
Utilization of AI
Coldham told BI the idea for Saturn came about after Golling WLG's staff was appointed brand protection manager for the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England, in 2022. “They have seen first-hand from the client side how difficult, cumbersome and costly brand protection can be,” Coldham said.
Saturn not only automates the process of searching for content infringement online, but also improves it by adding legal analysis and strategy to the results.
“This is a subscription product, and the technology helps customers identify when their products and marks are being used illegally,” Coldham said. The attorneys at Gowling WLG can advise your company on the best course of action once a breach has been identified.
Saturn systems can also scan the global IP landscape and provide copyright and trademark owners with suggestions on where to invest their time, effort, and money.
Did it work and how did the leaders know?
Coldham said initial tests of the system have proven successful.
“The technology will learn how to better identify potential infringements for each brand, leading to improved search results over time,” he said. “We can run global searches, provide reports, do gap analysis, and issue takedowns centrally instead of individually.”
In addition, the system can also: Coldham said the company would identify fake webshops, infringing domain names and brands on social media, and search for infringing and counterfeit goods.
What's next?
Coldham told BI that collaboration with customers is key to Saturn's future success: “This is a recently launched service, so we're working closely with customers to gather feedback as we implement new features,” he said.
While implementation of the new features is still a work in progress, Coldham said Saturn has demonstrated its adaptability in integrating changes and improvements.
We look forward to hearing your opinions. If you would like to give us your opinion on your company's AI implementation efforts, please contact us. jhood@businessinsider.com.
