Free tools
The search practice's own tools,
free, from the record.
Each of these is a step our searches run anyway. They read the patent's record and say what it says — no sign-in, no card, nothing invented. When a step needs judgement rather than a record, it is not a tool here; it is the work.
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
Each tool on its own page
- Prior-art cutoff date
- Patent expiration calculator
- Patent family & where in force
- References of record
- Foreign examiners' citations
- Examiner's search log
- Patentee's own words
- Pre-cutoff census
- Claim tree
- Patent litigation lookup
- IPR deadline calculator
- PCT national phase deadline
- EP opposition deadline
- WO / PCT search report reader
- Wayback date-prover
Questions
- Which date does prior art have to predate — the priority date or the filing date?
- The priority date, if the earlier application the patent claims priority to actually supports the claim you are attacking. If it does not support that claim, the claim is entitled only to the later filing date. The cutoff tool prints both dates and the gap between them; the choice depends on the claim.
- What does AIA versus pre-AIA change?
- Applications with an effective filing date on or after 16 March 2013 are examined under the America Invents Act's first-inventor-to-file rules; earlier ones under the old first-to-invent rules, which have a one-year grace period and different rules for what counts as prior art. The tool states which applies as a fact of the filing date.
- What are 'references of record' and why do they matter?
- Everything the Patent Office already had when it examined the patent: the references the examiner cited, the ones the applicant disclosed, and the foreign family members of both. Under 35 U.S.C. §325(d) the Board may decline a petition built on art substantially the same as what was already considered, so a new search has to go past this list — every search we run excludes it by construction.
- What is the examiner's search log, and why can it be empty?
- During examination the examiner's database sessions are printed to a 'search strategy and results' sheet and the classes searched go on a search-notes form; both sit in the public file wrapper. The tool transcribes them exactly. Some wrappers have neither — older filings and some foreign-origin cases — and the tool says so, which is a fact about the record and not a finding that no search happened.
- Why would the specification's words matter more than the claim's?
- Claims are drafted in deliberately general language; the description is written by the inventors in the language of the field, and so is the prior art. A search run on the claim's words can miss a reference that says the same thing in the field's words — the tool lists the words the specification uses that the independent claims do not, so a searcher can query with them.
- What does a Wayback capture date prove?
- That the page existed, in that form, on the date the Internet Archive captured it — which is a date a reference can be cited with. It does not prove the page was first published then; the real publication date may be earlier. For prior art the capture date is the conservative one: if it is before the cutoff, the document is prior art regardless of when it first appeared.
- How is the IPR one-year bar counted?
- Under 35 U.S.C. §315(b) a petition for inter partes review may not be instituted if it is filed more than one year after the petitioner, its real party in interest, or a privy is served with a complaint alleging infringement. The calculator adds one year to the service date; the last day to file is the day before that anniversary.
- Where do the answers come from?
- From the patent's own published record, read by the same code the search practice runs before any search. Nothing is estimated. If the record does not state something, the tool says so rather than guessing.