DeepIP, a French-American startup that sells AI software for writing and prosecuting patents, announced on June 9, 2026 that it had acquired PatentMaker, a Munich-based patent drafting tool built by German patent attorney Dr. Matthias Hofmann. The companies did not disclose the terms of the deal.
As part of the acquisition, DeepIP is opening a German office in Munich on the premises of Boehmert & Boehmert, the IP law firm where Hofmann is an equity partner and where PatentMaker was first developed. Hofmann joins DeepIP as co-founder responsible for Germany.
Celia Jinlan Wei, managing director of PatentMaker Software GmbH, will lead DeepIP's German business. DeepIP said existing customers of both products should see no disruption, and that it wanted the transition to feel like an upgrade.
What PatentMaker built
Hofmann, a German and European patent attorney with a PhD in machine learning from the University of Oxford, built PatentMaker inside Boehmert & Boehmert to take over routine but time-consuming tasks in daily patent work, for which he could not find a suitable product on the market. The tool later spread beyond the firm.
It now covers patent drafting and prosecution as well as standard mapping and freedom-to-operate analysis. According to DeepIP, nearly 50% of Germany's top IP law firms use it, along with corporate IP teams at Infineon Technologies and Siemens. It also has users in other parts of Europe, in Asia and in North America.
Wei joined PatentMaker as managing director in 2024 after nearly six years at German IP firm Prüfer & Partner, and has led its sales and commercial growth since then. Munich Startup described both Wei and Hofmann as co-founders of PatentMaker. The company's founding year, revenue and headcount were not disclosed.
“DeepIP brings resources, software scalability, product depth, and global momentum, while PatentMaker brings practical legal expertise and a deep understanding of patent workflows in Germany and across Europe.”
Why DeepIP is buying
The two companies argue that patent work stays local even as AI tools become global, because legal systems and procedures differ from country to country. DeepIP brings an AI platform already used in the United States and France; PatentMaker brings knowledge of German and European patent practice and a foothold close to the European Patent Office in Munich.
The combined product is meant to cover the full patent lifecycle in one place, from invention disclosure and prior-art search through drafting, filing and prosecution to post-grant work, according to LawSites and Munich Startup.
François-Xavier Leduc, DeepIP's co-founder and CEO, said Germany was a market with very high expectations and that PatentMaker was already deeply embedded in practitioners' workflows. He described it as made by practitioners, for practitioners, within the walls of Boehmert & Boehmert, and said the deal would place DeepIP more firmly in the EPO ecosystem.
Prof. Dr. Heinz Goddar, an equity partner at Boehmert & Boehmert and an early PatentMaker user, said the combination would strengthen DeepIP's ability to help customers choose the best ways to protect technical inventions.
A young and well-funded buyer
DeepIP was founded in 2024 by François-Xavier Leduc, its CEO, and Edouard d'Archimbaud, its CTO. The pair had previously started Doppio Software in 2008 and Kili Technology in 2018. The company says it raised more than $40 million (Munich Startup put it at more than €34 million) in under nine months; the announcement did not name its investors.
DeepIP says more than 400 law firms and corporate IP teams use its software in 25 jurisdictions across five continents, including more than half of the top 50 North American IP law firms. Named customers include Greenberg Traurig, Mewburn Ellis, Dexcom and Philips, and more than 25,000 patent applications have been drafted on its platform.
The company keeps its North American headquarters in New York and its European headquarters in Paris. The Munich office is its first in Germany.
Hofmann said the aim was to bring two proven products together on one platform, with DeepIP supplying resources and scale and PatentMaker supplying practical legal expertise, and so create the leading European AI tool for patent professionals.
