Free tools · Patentee's own words
The words this patent's inventors used that its claims do not.
Claims are written in deliberately general language; the description is written by the inventors in the language of their field, and so is the prior art. Enter a US patent number below for the words the specification uses that the independent claims do not, most-used first, with the patentee's own names and identifiers removed.
By patent number
One number, any format. Pick what you want to know about it, or ask for everything.
Free. Five lookups a day per visitor; fifteen with an email. The examiner's search log is read by a paid transcription, so it is limited to three new patents a day per visitor and twenty for everyone. A patent already read is always free and never counts. Resets at midnight UTC.
Every answer shown here, by email, with a link back. Also lifts your limit to fifteen lookups a day.
Deadline calculators
Dates in, dates out. The IPR one-year bar, the PTAB milestones, a contest's close in your own zone, the PCT national phase and the EP opposition window.
Date the complaint was served (35 U.S.C. §315(b)).
Date the IPR petition was filed.
The close as posted, Eastern Time.
Earliest priority date. 30 months for most offices; 31 for the EP and some others.
Date the mention of the EP grant was published. An opposition is due 9 months later (Art. 99 EPC).
Statutory and rule-based intervals, counted in calendar days; the PTAB lines are the usual milestones, and the Board's own scheduling order governs. Not legal advice. Feeds the invalidity search.
WO / PCT report reader
A WO number in; out: the international search report's citations with their X, Y and A categories and the claims each was aimed at, the earliest priority, the national-phase dates, and whether the US national phase has been entered.
International search report · EPO record
- X
- Y
- A
X: relevant alone. Y: relevant combined with another. A: background. Only the searching authority's own citations are listed, not the applicant's. National-phase limits vary by office; check the WIPO PCT time-limits table for the one you need.
Wayback date-prover
A URL in; out: the earliest archived capture of the page and its link, as a citable line for dating a manual, a datasheet or a product page. A capture proves the page existed by that date; it says nothing about when it was first published. Feeds the non-patent literature sweep.
From the Wayback Machine
About this tool
A search built only from claim terms such as 'fastening member' or 'processing unit' can miss a reference that says 'rivet' or 'microcontroller'. The list is the vocabulary the field actually uses for the same things.
Copy the list into any patent or literature search as alternatives for the claim's own words.
Questions
- Why not just search the claim language?
- Because older art rarely uses a modern claim's abstractions. The field's names for things change less than drafting conventions do.
- Does the list include the patentee's own names?
- No. The patentee's own identifiers are removed so the list is usable as search terms.