Free tools · Wayback date-prover
When did this web page first exist? The earliest Wayback capture, as a citation.
Enter a URL below for the earliest capture the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine holds for it, with a link and a line you can cite. A capture proves the page existed in that form on that date; it says nothing about when it was first published, which may be earlier.
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
For prior art the capture date is the conservative date: if it is before the patent's cutoff, the document qualifies regardless of when it first appeared. The PTAB accepts Wayback captures, usually with an affidavit from the Internet Archive authenticating them.
Manuals, datasheets and product pages are often the strongest non-patent prior art and the hardest to date. Try both the page and the direct PDF link, since the archive may hold one and not the other.
Questions
- Is a Wayback Machine capture admissible at the PTAB?
- Routinely, when supported by an affidavit from the Internet Archive authenticating the capture. The archive provides these on request for a fee.
- Why does the earliest capture not match the publication date?
- The archive captures pages when its crawler reaches them, which can be months after publication. The page existed by the capture date at the latest.