How Metsä Group empowers their R&D team with intuitive patent intelligence
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R&D engineers search and monitor autonomously
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Complex patent searches simplified for non-IP professionals
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Sparks innovation and internal patent discussions
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Killer prior art missed by external partners, found by IPRally
Breaking down barriers to patent intelligence
As a leading Nordic forest industry cooperative, Metsä Group represents the entire value chain – from forest planting to final products like plywood and packaging. What was once a traditional industry has undergone dramatic transformation in recent years, with new applications for pulp emerging and new players entering the market. Consequently, the IP landscape has expanded and grown increasingly complex.
Much of Metsä Group’s technology monitoring and freedom-to-operate (FTO) analysis is carried out by R&D teams within each business unit. However, their previous monitoring tool had a high barrier to entry, making it difficult for non-IP experts to use effectively. This led Metsä Group to seek an AI-based solution that their R&D teams could operate independently, particularly for monitoring purposes.
“We tested several solutions, running extended evaluations for a few selected tools,” explains Noora Ristolainen, IPR director at Metsä Group. “We evaluated them based on usability, accuracy, and whether they produced reliable, non-hallucinated results. In the end, we voted, and IPRally came out on top. It was an easy decision.”
Even when we outsource searches, we use IPRally to bring in a different way of thinking. We used to fully rely on what our partners delivered, but that’s changed.
From monitoring to innovation: Expanding use cases
Initially introduced as a tool for technology monitoring, IPRally quickly gained broader traction across Metsä Group's R&D teams, largely thanks to its ease of use. Team members originally responsible for monitoring discovered how intuitive the platform was and began conducting their own patent searches independently.
Tasks like Patentability assessments that once required outsourcing – and could take weeks – can now be completed in-house within minutes or hours.
“IPRally has also sparked new conversations internally,” says Noora. “Now that it’s easy to see what others are patenting, more people are coming forward with ideas and exploring their patent potential. The R&D team can quickly assess if something is worth filing – or even patentable at all.”
Revealing unexpected insights
The introduction of IPRally has significantly boosted the team’s efficiency by improving search accuracy. Unlike traditional keyword-based tools that often miss relevant prior art due to differences in terminology, IPRally’s AI-driven approach dives deeper to uncover relevant documents.
“Sometimes, relevant prior art doesn’t use the expected terminology, and it might come from a completely different domain. Even when we outsource searches, we use IPRally to bring in a different way of thinking. In opposition cases, we’ve discovered killer prior art that our external partners didn't find. We used to fully rely on what our partners delivered, but that’s changed”, says Noora and continues:
“IPRally delivers everything a patent or R&D professional needs. All the information is there, it’s easy to use, and the integrated AI assistants are always ready to refine the search input and answer any questions about the search results. We’ve already doubled our number of users, and I don’t think we’ve hit the ceiling yet.”