| name | search-prior-art-2 |
| title | Search Prior Art |
| description | Prior art search for invention|patent claim. Patent + non-patent (academic, products, OSS), defensive pubs, standard-essential patents. Use → eval novelty+non-obvious pre-file, challenge existing patent validity, support FTO analysis, document defensive pub, respond to office action questioning novelty. |
| author | pjt222 |
| author_url | https://github.com/pjt222/agent-almanac/tree/main/i18n/caveman-ultra/skills/search-prior-art |
| license | MIT |
| version | 0.1.0 |
| execution_mode | open |
| jurisdiction | general |
| practice | ip |
| language | en |
Search Prior Art
Structured prior art search → find pubs|patents|products|disclosures predating invention. Used for patentability (can patent?), validity challenge (should have been granted?), FTO (covered by existing rights?).
Use When
- Eval novelty+non-obvious pre-file
- Challenge existing patent validity → find art examiner missed
- Support FTO → find art limiting blocking patent scope
- Document defensive pub → prevent others patenting concept
- Respond to office action questioning novelty|obviousness
In
- Required: Invention desc (what, how, problem)
- Required: Purpose (patentability|invalidity|FTO|defensive)
- Required: Critical date (filing date or invention date)
- Optional: Known related patents|pubs
- Optional: Tech classification codes (IPC, CPC)
- Optional: Key inventors|companies
Do
Step 1: Decompose Invention
Break into constituent technical features.
- Read desc (or claims if vs existing patent)
- Extract essential elements — each independent feature:
- Components?
- Process steps?
- Technical effect?
- Problem + how solved?
- ID novel combination — what's diff from known:
- New element added to known?
- New combo of known?
- Known element new field?
- Gen search terms per element:
- Tech terms, synonyms, abbrev
- Broader+narrower (hierarchy)
- Alt descriptions
- Doc Search Map: elements, terms, relationships
Search Map Example:
+------------------+-----------------------------------+-----------+
| Element | Search Terms | Priority |
+------------------+-----------------------------------+-----------+
| Attention layer | attention mechanism, self- | High |
| | attention, multi-head attention | |
| Sparse routing | mixture of experts, sparse MoE, | High |
| | top-k routing, expert selection | |
| Training method | knowledge distillation, teacher- | Medium |
| | student, progressive training | |
+------------------+-----------------------------------+-----------+
→ Complete decomposition w/ terms per element. Novel combo ID'd → search must find (invalidate) or confirm absent (support novelty).
