How can a biotech company protect its intellectual property when employees use AI?
Keep research data on company-controlled AI services whose terms exclude your data from model training, never on personal accounts. Then label confidential data, fix file permissions before connecting AI to them, restrict connectors, and write a policy covering unpublished results, sequences and patent drafts. The goal is that no trade secret or pre-filing disclosure leaves an environment you govern.
Why biotech IP is unusually exposed
A biotech's value often sits in unpublished data: assay results, sequences, structures, process parameters and patent drafts. Trade secret protection depends on taking reasonable steps to keep information confidential, and patent strategy depends on controlling when an invention is disclosed. Pasting that material into an AI tool your company does not control can undermine both. Ask patent counsel how your specific AI use affects disclosure and confidentiality.
The risk is rarely a deliberate leak. It is a scientist pasting an unpublished figure legend into a free chatbot to tidy the wording, a business-development lead summarizing a term sheet, or a contractor using a personal account because nobody gave them an approved one. Each is a small act with potentially large consequences.
Control where the data goes
Vendor terms differ by plan, not just by vendor. OpenAI says it may use content from its services for individuals to train models unless the user opts out, but by default does not train on ChatGPT Business, Enterprise, Edu or API data. Microsoft says Copilot prompts, responses and Microsoft Graph data are not used to train foundation models.
The rule that follows is simple: research data goes only into company-licensed AI accounts with admin control, single sign-on and documented terms. Personal accounts are prohibited for work.
Controls that actually protect IP
- Sensitivity labels on research, regulatory and patent folders; Microsoft states Copilot honors label-based encryption and usage rights.
- Permission clean-up before any AI assistant is connected to SharePoint, OneDrive or electronic lab notebooks.
- Connector and plug-in restrictions, since each third-party connector has its own data terms.
- Data loss prevention rules that flag sequences, compound identifiers or project code names leaving approved systems.
- Off-boarding that removes AI access with the rest of the account.
Write it down
Document the policy, train staff on it, and keep records of approved tools and their terms. If a dispute or diligence review ever asks what reasonable steps you took to protect confidential information, a written, enforced AI policy is part of the answer.
Extend the same rules to collaborators. Contract research organizations, academic partners and consultants handle your data too, so confidentiality agreements and data-sharing terms should say whether, and on which tools, they may process it with AI.
Common follow-up questions
Does using ChatGPT count as public disclosure of an invention?
That is a legal question for your patent counsel and depends on the facts. The safer operating rule is to keep pre-filing invention details out of any AI tool that your company does not control under business terms that exclude training.
Is a self-hosted model safer than ChatGPT or Copilot?
It can be, but only if you secure it. A self-hosted model keeps data in your environment, yet you take on patching, access control and logging. For many small biotechs, a governed business plan with strong permissions is the more practical control.
Should scientists be allowed to use AI at all?
Yes, with guardrails. Literature review, drafting, coding and analysis on approved accounts deliver real productivity. A ban usually just moves use onto personal phones, which is the worst outcome for IP protection.
LAN Service Group sets up company-controlled AI platforms, sensitivity labeling, permission clean-up and data loss prevention for life-science and biotech companies so research data stays inside a governed environment.
Talk to LAN Service Group (888) 281-7243