For founders used to moving quickly, the patent process often proves tediously slow, as well as unexpectedly expensive. But a growing number of legaltech firms powered by artificial intelligence (AI) claim to have the answer, with new patent services that threaten to disrupt a business that has traditionally been the preserve of big law.

The latest such disruptor is San Francisco-based Fearn AI , which has just completed a $5.5 million fund raise as it continues to roll out a patenting service that it claims can speed up the process more than 10-fold. Critically, Fearn charges a fixed fee for its services – $2,500 for a provisional patent application or $9,000 for a more formal non-provisional filing – rather than leaving start-ups to face the unknown costs of a law firm charging by the hour.

Launched earlier this year, Fearn was founded by former Morrison & Foerster lawyer Han Kim and AI specialist Angela Gao. Kim, now the company’s CEO, says his time in legal practice convinced him there was a better way to serve start-ups. “I was surprised to see how much of the work in patents was mechanical; I felt much more of it could be automated than people realized,” he recalls. “I also felt the billable hours model had lots of problems associated with it.”

Fearn started out with the ambition of selling its software to law firms, enabling them to automate much of the in-house work in their patent departments. But Kim and Gao quickly realised there was a challenge with this model. “Law firms didn’t necessarily feel they were benefiting from being more efficient because it meant they were reporting fewer hours they could bill clients for,” he explains. “Or they simply didn’t pass on the savings.”

That prompted a pivot from Fearn, which now sees selling its services direct to start-ups as the best way forward. The company says its automated service, underwritten by AI, replicates the patent work that founders would get from a conventional law service. It’s confident enough in the robustness of its software to offer a refund of its fees if the US Patent and Trademark Office refuses to provide any protections on a non-provisional application.

The company has already begun to sign up customers and is targeting industries including software, hardware, robotics, semiconductors, defense, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. One early adopter, the London-based games studio Iconic, points to the potential time savings from an AI service as particularly important. “Speed is the whole game at seed stage,” says Iconic CEO Andrew Bowell. “A patent process that takes a quarter doesn’t protect you [because] the field has moved by the time you file.”

Fearn’s funding should help it to grow that customer base more rapidly in the months to come. The $5.5 million round is supported by Kindred Ventures, a16z Speedrun, Designer Fund and Essence VC. At Kindred, founder and managing partner Steve Jang says: “AI is beginning to change the underlying economics of professional services and patent law is an especially compelling place for that shift.”

Investors are excited by the size of the patent market. The global intellectual property sector is worth around $14 billion according to recent research , but that figure is set to grow to more than $20 billion by 2035. Businesses around the world file more than 150,000 new patent applications each year as they seek to protect their innovation and invention.

Naturally, an opportunity on this scale has attracted other firms. For example, the Swedish legaltech firm Lightbringer raised $10 million of new funding earlier this year and has recently launched a US patents service to add to its European business. Other competitors include Patentext and Idea Clerk, owned by Paximal.

However, Fearn is confident it can hold its own, even as the market becomes more crowded. Patent law has higher barriers to entry, points out Kim, with lawyers required to have both specialist legal expertise and technical prowess. “In addition, we see ourselves as an AI native that is equal parts software engineers and research scientists as well as patent attorneys and patent agents,” he says. “We think that is an interesting gap in the market that we’ve managed to fill.”