Patent Prior-Art and Landscape Research
Get ranked patent evidence, claim comparisons, family-resolved landscapes, and jurisdiction-specific FTO research flags.
Before & after
Same prompt, same agent — the only difference is the skill.
I can help you search for relevant prior art in the patent systems. There are several patent databases I could search in, including Google Patents, the official USPTO database, and various European patent databases. Tell me what your invention is about. Have you filed a patent application already? I'd need significant more details about what your specific technology does and how it works to conduct an effective comprehensive search. Should I search broadly across the whole field or focus narrowly on specific technology areas?
FREEDOM-TO-OPERATE SEARCH REPORT: INTAKE CONFIRMATION: Freedom-to-operate (FTO) use case confirmed as primary search objective. Technology scope: Automated feature extraction in tabular datasets with heterogeneous data types. SEARCH RESULTS RANKED BY INFRINGEMENT RISK (closest first): 1. US Patent 10,234,567 (issued 2022): Title 'Adaptive feature selection for structured data.' Patent claims include automated column evaluation, data type inference logic, null-value handling strategies. RISK ASSESSMENT: Moderate infringement risk. Published claims don't explicitly mention ensemble methods (your claimed technical improvement). Geographic protection: US, EU, Japan. Patent family size: 8 related filings worldwide. 2. US Patent 9,876,543 (issued 2019): Title 'Semi-supervised learning for tabular data.' Broader patent scope with some overlap on feature engineering automation. RISK ASSESSMENT: Low infringement risk. Predates your potential filing date but claims are significantly vaguer, narrower technical scope. LANDSCAPE ANALYSIS: 47 related patents identified in CPC class G06N-3/08. Novelty window appears narrow—specific to heterogeneous data type handling. Competitive patent density: moderate. FTO VERDICT: Clear to file and commercialize. Patent landscape analysis supports your novelty claim. Recommend narrowing specific claims around multi-type dataset handling to avoid potential overlap with patents 1 and 2. FILING STRATEGY: Recommend filing utility patent first. Consider design patent on workflow user interface if commercializing to end users. Geographic filing priority: US, EU, JP based on your target market presence. (Illustrative example only. Not legal advice. Consult a patent attorney before filing decisions.)
About this skill
A patent search can return hundreds of results and still miss the document or claim that matters. This skill separates prior-art research, freedom-to-operate screening, competitive landscapes, acquisition diligence, and litigation research so each search answers the right question.
What it does
- Converts an invention or product description into searchable technical features and a comparison matrix.
- Ranks prior art by disclosed features and date eligibility, including relevant non-patent literature.
- Screens potentially relevant claims against a product, country by country, with explicit status gaps.
- Resolves patent families while preserving materially different continuation and national claims.
- Builds CPC-aware landscapes and acquisition diligence findings without inflating counts with duplicate publications.
- Records queries, sources, document locations, exclusions, and unresolved questions for attorney review.
What you get
An editable research report with an evidence-based assessment, ranked documents or families, feature or claim comparisons, geographic coverage, and a reproducible search log. When file-generation tools support it, the report can be delivered as a Word document; otherwise, you receive editable Markdown.
Best for
Inventors preparing for patent counsel, product teams screening launch risks, technical researchers mapping competitors, and diligence teams evaluating patent portfolios.
SKILL.md preview
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name: patent-prior-art-and-landscape-research
description: Conducts patent prior-art, freedom-to-operate, landscape, acquisition diligence, and litigation research using feature decomposition, date screening, claim comparisons, and family resolution. Use when the user says "find prior art for my invention", "can we sell this without infringing a patent", "map patents in this technology", "review this patent portfolio before acquisition", "find earlier disclosures for these claims", "my patent search keeps returning duplicates", or "these patents look similar but which ones matter".
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# Patent Prior-Art and Landscape Research
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