Patent Disclosure Handoff

Patent disclosure handoff

Turn a real project or research result into an attorney-reviewable invention disclosure packet: what problem is solved, what technical means solve it, why it differs from nearby work, what embodiments support the breadth, what figures are needed, and what counsel still needs to decide.

Read references/patent-resource-map.md before jurisdiction- or filing-sensitive work. It records the peer skills, official sources, borrowed mechanisms and honest boundaries. Read references/patent-interview-and-search.md before patent-point mining, public search, claim-ladder drafting or attorney handoff. It contains the detailed interview, search and QC rules.

Non-negotiable boundaries

1. This skill is not legal advice and never certifies READY_TO_FILE. Deliver only DRAFT, NEEDS_USER_INPUT, or READY_FOR_ATTORNEY_REVIEW.
2. Do not guarantee grant, novelty, inventive step, non-infringement, validity, ownership, freedom to operate, or registration outcome.
3. Preserve uncertainty. If a search, date, assignee, inventor, public disclosure, foreign-filing rule, or priority fact is not verified, write UNKNOWN, PLANNED, or UNAVAILABLE with the next check.
4. Evidence comes from real artifacts: repository files, design docs, lab notes, papers, experiment logs, issue discussions or user-supplied records. Keep relative locators and SHA-256. Do not invent implementation details.
5. Patent figures must be programmatic/vector/manual sources such as Mermaid, Graphviz, PlantUML or SVG. Do not use AI-generated bitmap images for patent drawings.
6. Keep the skill off the research DAG. It has no stage, no STAGE_GATES, no ROUTES, no light.findings.v1, and no scientific back-edge.

Workflow

1. Intake the decision facts and risk triage

Ask for or mark UNKNOWN:

• jurisdiction and intended route: CN invention/utility model, US provisional, US nonprovisional, PCT, EP, or undecided;
• owner/applicant, inventors/contributors, employment or sponsor constraints;
• public disclosures, papers, demos, GitHub releases, sales, thesis defense, posters, standards submissions, and their dates;
• deadline, prior filings, priority claim, secrecy/export/confidentiality risk;
• whether a licensed attorney or patent agent will review the output.

Record risk_triage for public disclosure, ownership/inventorship, foreign-filing/secrecy and trade-secret redaction. Stop for the user when a public disclosure, ownership dispute, foreign filing strategy, secrecy review, or filing deadline could change the next action.

2. Build the evidence packet

Scan only files placed in scope. For each source artifact record:

• id, relative path, sha256, freshness/date if known;
• what claim element or embodiment it supports;
• whether private or third-party confidential content must be redacted before sharing with outside counsel.

If the source is a paper, product demo, notebook, API contract, dataset or diagram, bind the exact locator. Do not let chat memory become evidence.

3. Mine patent points with problem-solution-effect discipline

For each candidate patent point, write:

• technical problem, not business desire;
• concrete technical means, algorithm, architecture, protocol, data structure, control loop, signal processing, model pipeline, hardware arrangement or UI interaction rule;
• technical effect and measurable advantage;
• distinguishing features versus the closest known work;
• fallback embodiments, alternatives, parameter ranges and failure cases;
• support artifact IDs for every feature.

Prefer one strong, defensible invention story over a pile of vague features. Ask targeted questions for tacit knowledge that the repo cannot show. Keep a short inventor interview log: problem, failed alternatives, key insight, constraints, contributors, disclosure dates and known prior art.

4. Do prior-art / novelty-context work honestly

Search the relevant official or public sources available in the current environment, then record:

• databases/pages searched, query strings, date, filters and failures;
• nearest results with locators and relationship to the invention;
• whether the search is VERIFIED, PLANNED, UNKNOWN, or UNAVAILABLE.

Keep inventor_known_prior_art separate from prior_art. The former is what the team already knows; the latter is the agent-run public search log. A verified public search records searched_sources; if non-patent literature is not searched, write why.

Do not call this a legal novelty opinion. If search coverage is shallow, say so and list the missing source or professional search still needed.