Frequently asked questions

What does the prior-art search do?

It reduces what you give it, a description, a draft, a published patent, to a handful of short queries, searches every channel of our database at once (meaning, wording, classification, citations, the document's own passages and figures), fuses the results, then reads the strongest references end to end and ranks them on what each was measured to disclose. First results in seconds, fully ranked in a minute or two. It is free and needs no account.

What is the third-party build?

A different pipeline for a published application you want to challenge. It starts from the claims, retrieves wide, reads at least 50 references in full, charts each claim against each reference with a verbatim quotation behind every cell, and builds the papers for a USPTO third-party submission under 37 CFR 1.290 or EPO third-party observations under Article 115 EPC. It runs against an account and is paid from your balance by what it reads.

How much does it cost?

The search is free. A build is about $0.33 per reference read, so the 50-reference floor is about $10 to $24; the page quotes the estimate before you start and the exact figure the moment the run lands. Every new account starts with $35 of credit. See pricing.

Is the search "semantic" or "keyword"?

Both, and more, at once. Meaning-based retrieval finds documents that share none of your words; lexical retrieval finds the exact terms; classification and citation channels find the neighbours. The results are fused so no single channel decides.

What does the database cover?

Granted US patents and US and European publications with their full claims and descriptions, 5,423,561 of them, updated regularly. It is not every document in the world: a search can miss art that is only in another office's records, which is what the outside-sources option and every report's scope statement are for.

Is what I upload confidential?

Yes. An uploaded document is stored only to run your search and quote it in your report. It is not published, not shown to other users, and not used to train models. A report is only ever reachable by its own link, and only if you publish it. See the privacy policy.

Is a report legal advice? Do you file for me?

No and no. Reports and draft papers are generated by software for you to review. IPtorch does not give legal advice and does not file at any patent office; the papers it prepares are yours to check, sign and file.

Can I save and export results?

Yes. Reports stay in your history, can be starred into your library, exported as PDF, DOCX, XLSX and Markdown, and published to a password-protected link.

Do you have an API?

Not publicly. Write to support@iptorch.com.