在今年(2017年)的8月，筆者關注到Patentbot團隊，而撰寫了這篇文章— —「第一個開始賺錢的法律聊天機器人：申請商標的PatentBot 」，幸運的是Patentbot團隊創辦人Valentin Pivovarov也看見這篇報導，讓筆者有機會進一步採訪團隊！這也是筆者採訪的第一個國外Legal Tech團隊！
本篇為了方便閱讀，編輯方式附上創辦人Valentin Pivovarov先生的英文原話，以及稍加潤飾後的中文翻譯。當然有些技術用語並非我們的專業，我們已經盡可能理解，如果仍有錯誤，敬請不吝提供我們正確的資訊！
Please introduce yourself briefly, especially, your experience within this 3 years work in LegalTech sphere.
是否能向大家簡短自我介紹，尤其是您這三年在Legal Tech領域的經驗。
My experience in legaltech sphere started in 2014 when I was a student at University. My brother, my friend and I made a research about the legal market in post-soviet countries and realized that this sphere had very poor foundations. That is why the idea of legal services online appeared. Inspired by such American companies as LegalZoom, Rocket Lawyer, Avvo and Wevorce, we founded our first legaltech startup in December 2014. Our services included online legal and notary advice, documentary assistance via contract constructor and the access to emergency legal help. Since that time I know that it’s my destination. I think that technology can improve access to justice and I am going to build Jurisprudence 2.0. My legaltech startup Legal Alarm was mentioned like best legal innovation in 2016 by HiiL, that can improve access to justice worldwide. With my partners we organized first legaltech hackathon in Eastern Europe, that was one of the huge legaltech hackathon ever, impressed all Legal Hackers Community.
2014年，在我身為大學生時，開啟了接觸Legal Tech的大門。我、哥哥還有朋友，針對後蘇聯國家(post-soviet countries)的Legal Tech市場做了調查，發現這個領域的基礎仍然十分薄弱。於是，線上法律服務的構想就此誕生。受到美國LegalZoom、Rocket Lawyer, Avvo 以及 Wevorce等Lega Tech的啟發後，我們在2014年12月初次創立團隊。當時，我們提供的服務包含：線上法律與公證諮詢(online legal and notary advice)、提供合約當事人的文件協助(documentary assistance via contract constructor)，還有緊急時刻的法律服務(access to emergency legal help)。從那時起，我便明白這是我的心之所向。我認為「科技能夠改善人們利用法律的途徑」，因此，我們要建立起「法律2.0」— —我的團隊「Legal Alarm」獲得法律科技化加速器HiiL評選為「2016年最佳的法律服務創新之一」，這讓我們的法律服務走向國際。我與我的夥伴們在東歐舉辦了第一場「Legal Tech黑客松」，而且這是Legal Tech有史以來規模最大的黑客松，也讓Legal Tech黑客圈留下深刻印象。
Today, in our legaltech laboratory lexnet.io we have three products:
現在我們的LegalTech實驗室lexnet.io已經有三項服務：
- Legal Alarm– emergency legal help in one click
透過點擊即可提供的緊急法律服務 - PatentBot – bot in the Facebook messenger that helps to register trademark
透過Facebook messenger中的聊天機器人協助商標註冊的申請 - LITT – platform for coding the contract in MS Word
提供在MS Word中透過程式語言產生契約
We grow very rapidly and I can say, that on the whole, technology is already changing the legal industry not only in Ukraine, but in World.
我們成長得非常快速，且整體而言，科技對法律產業所帶來的蝴蝶效應，已不僅止於烏克蘭，而是影響著全世界。
What is your final technological development goal for PatentBot? For example: Trademark research, especially for finding similar registered trademark; Trademark right maintains, and so on.
貴團隊Patentbot在技術開發上的最終目標是什麼？可能是商標檢索(尤其是商標近似的判斷)，或者是商標維權等等？
Our final goal for Patentbot to bring people easy way to register all intellectual rights : copyrights, domain registration, patenting and trademark registration.
Patentbot的終端目標— —是讓大眾能夠便利的申請註冊所有智財權：著作權、網域、專利與商標。
We started with simple TM registration. Today we see that Trademark registration process along with a list of all the requirements there to, all the necessary papers, the need to spend time for visiting the lawyer’s office, very often stops brands and startups from having their trademark registered. In the end, not understanding the importance of registration from the outset, a lot of people and companies with a certain name and reputation face legal problems in future. Our team found a solution and offer at service a bot-registrator of TMs.
讓我們從最簡易的商標申請註冊開始：每個商標申請註冊的流程，都必須要有相應的文件作確認，為了這些不可避免的行政流程，品牌公司或新創團隊就經常為此拜訪委任的事務所，時間與空間的限制，往往成為品牌和創業公司註冊商標的絆腳石。從一開始就不了解商標註冊的重要性，很多知名企業和個人在未來將會面臨成本更高的法律爭議問題。而我們的團隊找到了一個解決方案— —「提供商標註冊服務的聊天機器人」。
The main value of the bot is that the client performs the entire registration process in messenger. Operatively and at the same time 3–4 times cheaper than a similar service in average in the market. In the mobile version, the client does not leave the messenger during the entire registration process. After clicking the “Pay” button, the internal messenger browser redirects the client request to the Pay server and provides a page for filling in the payment information. After filling in the data and successful payment, the payment system sends information about the payment to the client.
聊天機器人的核心價值：客戶是在「Facebook Messenger」中運作所有商標註冊的流程，而且平均費用比市場上同類型的服務便宜3-4倍。手持裝置的版本中，客戶在商標註冊過程中不會離開Messenger的介面，點擊「付款」按鈕後，Ｍessenger內部的瀏覽器會將客戶的需求導向至填寫付款資訊的頁面，完成填寫後，支付系統將發送付款資訊給客戶。
We launched full features in late July, since that time we have revenue; Patentbot passed to the final of HiiL Justice Accelerator and took part in TechCrunch Disrupt.
從2017年7月底發布完整功能後，我們就開始獲利了。Patentbot被HiiL Justice加速器選上，還參加了被譽為新創圈奧斯卡— —「TechCrunch Disrup新創展」。
Right now we are working on features for US market.
現在，我們正著手對美國市場做研究。
Will you extend this business model of PatentBot to other countries? Base on my personal research, though Austrian Patent Office develops a PatentBot too, obviously your PatentBot satisfy with profit requirement of a business model.
雖然奧地利智財局也開發了Patentbot，不過很顯然的貴團隊的Patentbot已經有了獲利模式，而你們是否會將這樣的商業模式複製到國外？
Our bot is still young enough, so at first, we have engaged its technical improvement on the Ukrainian market. Today, we feel that we can more and can go global. Month ago I was in San Francisco and I had some meetings with potential partners and clients. Already, we have partially implemented a functional for entering the US market. We received feedback from US accelerators — so soon, the world will see our “girl” in America. Also we talking with partners in Germany, so soon, registration of trademarks with the help of our bot will be available in Germany and whole EU.
初期，我們僅在烏克蘭的市場中進行技術上的改良。儘管我們的聊天機器人仍非常年輕，但現在，我認為我們越來越能夠打入國際市場了。幾個月前，我在美國的三藩市與幾位潛在的合夥人及客戶見面，現在已經有部分功能進入美國市場了。歸功於從美國創業加速器中獲得的回饋— —很快的，全世界將會目睹我們的「機器人女孩」進入美國市場。此外，經過我們與德國夥伴的討論後， 利用聊天機器人的服務來申請註冊商標，在德國與其他歐盟國家將指日可待。
How do you think about those “Trademark Registration Platforms”, performing by setting up a website, and running trademark registration business as e-commerce, do you take them as competitors?
對於「商標申請平台」，透過網路以電子商務的方式提商標申請服務的業者，你如何看待？會將他們視為競爭者嗎？
Of course we understand that our Patentbot have some competitors such as “old school” patent attorneys, a lot of websites and governmental patent offices, but we are flexible and growth fast through our advantage – conversational dialogue and Facebook possibilities.
當然我們有認知到，傳統的代理人、商標申請的網頁還有政府網頁都是我們的競爭者，但是我們利用— —對話式的情境與Facebook發展可能性的優勢，快速而彈性的成長。
What is the hardest thing to overcome while developing PatentBot?
在開發Patentbot的過程中，是否有難以克服的問題？
At the start of developing, we decided to make a bot on Facebook. In Ukraine, this platform is the medium of business communication, and the format of the social network is ideal for deploying marketing activities. The development took a month longer than we planned. In fact, due to the rather complicated and full functionality, the process could take a longer time, but since we had our own development team working on the full-time project and immediately solved technical problems, the delay with the release was not so critical.
在開發之初，我們決定讓聊天機器人內建於Facebook。在烏克蘭，Facebook是商務溝通的媒介— —透過社交網路進行社群行銷。由於聊天機器人複雜及全方位的功能，開發過程需要較長的時間，花費超乎我們預期一個月的時間，但我們擁有自己的全職開發團隊，可以立即解決技術上的問題，所以發布的延遲並不那麼嚴重。
The biggest technical difficulties arose because of the difficulties with the definition of classes and the search for individual databases of trademarks. We also established the process of recognizing various versions of writing queries for a long time.
最大的技術問題是：類型的識別困難、商標的資料庫的搜尋困難。我們也花費了很長的時間來建立可以識別不同版本的查詢功能。
Three months later, there are fewer bugs in the bot work, but we are constantly working to improve our functionality.
三個月後，聊天機器人的系統運作錯誤減少了，但我們仍持續努力改善我們的功能。
After operations on 28th July, do you have any impressive things to share?
在貴團對於2017年7月28日正式營運後，有沒有什麼印象深刻的事要和大家分享呢？
We launched full features in Ukraine on 28th of July and had our first client in 10 minutes.
我們在2017年7月28日正式發布Patentbot，十分鐘內就獲取了第一位顧客。
For one month this bot earn money as best Patent Law Office in Ukraine, and it is Ukraine! We see that this bot can rethink an understanding of trademark registration.
在發布後的一個月之中，Patent所賺取的獲利就和烏克蘭最好律師事務所一樣了，我們認為聊天機器人商標註冊的服務流程可以被人們理解及重新思考！
Nowadays, PatentBot finishes incubation in the ukrainian platform “1991” and entered the list of finalists from the HiiL Innovating Justice Challenge. The final Innovating Justice Boostcamp taking place in Kyiv on the 19th of October 2017. Today have over 3,000 unique users; sales go away, and most importantly, we hear “thanks” from our happy customers.
現在，Patentbot已經在烏克蘭的1991平台完成孵化，並進入HiiL Justice加速器最終入圍名單。最終創新正義Boostcamp將在2017年10月19日於基輔舉行。如今，我們擁有超過3000名獨家用戶；行銷流程結束後，最重要的，我們聆聽到了來自客戶開心的「謝意」。
Already, we have partially implemented a functional for entering the US market. Also, we are talking with US accelerators about possibility to scale to the US market. We presented our bot on the TechCrunch Disrupt in San-Francisco and received feedback from some partners and potential investors from the Silicon Valley, so we are preparing for the release on the US market very actively.
在美國，我們已經實施了部分的功能。另外，我們正在和美國的創業加速器商談佈局美國市場的可能性。我們在舊金山的TechCrunch Disrupt上展示了我們的聊天機器人，並收到了來自矽谷的一些合作夥伴和潛在投資者的回饋，所以我們正在為美國市場的發表做積極的準備。
Also we are talking with our partners from European market, so our bot will register trademarks in European countries. World without borders and we feel it on ourselves now.
此外，我們開始與歐洲市場的夥伴進行洽談，也就是說，Patentbot將會在歐洲國家的商標申請註冊服務，而現在，我們也因此深切感受到世界是無遠弗屆的。
As we know, “Trademark” and “Patent” are two different rights, so, I just can’t help but want to ask that why this bot which helps people to apply trademark is called “Patentbot”?
「商標」與「專利」是兩個不同的智慧財產權，所以我們不禁想問，為什麼以申請商標的題目的商品/服務要叫「Patentbot」呢？
We believe that phrase “Patented” covers not only really patents, but every object of intellectual property in daily speech. So people frequently use this phrase to show that IP rights are registered. Our bot was made for wide market of people, so we chosen this name.
我們認為「Patent」一詞所涵蓋的，不僅止於法律權利上能取得權力的「專利」， 而是我們在日常生活中所有智慧資產的「專利」。人們經常用這個詞彙來表明智慧資產是被註冊的，我們的機器人為了群眾的市場而生，也之所以「PatentBot」這個名字雀屏中選。
And there is one extra reason. Now our bot makes free searches in trademark databases and registers TM. But in our immediate plans – search and register of domains, copyright registration and, certainly, register patents!
而另一個原因就是，現在我們的機器人可以免費檢索商標資料與申請註冊，但網域的檢索與申請、著作權登記還有專利申請，也都已經在團隊的規劃籌備之列了！
共同編輯：Vivian Chen
