Prior-art search
Prior-art search with the discipline of practice
Built for people who know what a reference has to do: read on elements. Patent77 plans the search from the disclosure, executes it against the live record, and returns art you can verify - with the queries, the scores and the blind spots all on the page.
Working principles
Four rules the engine is held to
01Elements, not descriptions
Novelty under 35 U.S.C. § 102 turns on whether a single reference discloses every element; obviousness under § 103 on whether combinations do. The engine decomposes your disclosure into claim-style elements first, because that's the unit of comparison an examiner uses.
02Queries you can audit
Every result lists the corpus queries actually executed - synonym expansions, element pairs, classification-informed variants. If you'd have phrased one differently, you can run your own and compare. No black box.
03Scores with citations
References come back ranked 0-1 with a one-line statement of what each teaches that overlaps. The publication number and canonical source link are always present; a reference you can't verify is a reference you can't use.
04Limitations, stated
Each report ends with what the search did not cover: non-patent literature, unpublished applications inside the 18-month window, foreign-language collections beyond the corpus. An honest search names its blind spots.
Go deeper
The reference shelf
Long-form guides on search method and patent process - written to be useful whether or not you use the engine.
FAQ
Questions, answered plainly
What counts as prior art?
Any public disclosure before your effective filing date: granted patents, published applications, journal articles, product manuals, even conference talks. Patent77 searches the patent record - patents and published applications - which is where examiners find the large majority of cited art. Non-patent literature is outside scope and stated as a limitation in every report.
Is this a patentability search or a freedom-to-operate search?
Patentability: it asks whether your invention is new and non-obvious over the record. Freedom-to-operate asks the different question of whether making or selling a product would infringe live claims, and that analysis should be done by counsel. Our guide on patentability vs. FTO explains the distinction.
Which corpus does it search?
The live Google Patents corpus at query time - US and major international collections of patents and published applications. The result states the corpus and the number of candidates considered, so the coverage claim is inspectable rather than implied.
Can I use the output in a filing?
Use it to decide and to prepare, not as a legal opinion. The report is designed to hand to a registered attorney or agent: cited references, element mapping, and an examiner-style read they can verify quickly. If you have a duty of disclosure (e.g. an IDS), discuss the found references with counsel.
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Put the disclosure through the sift.
Three free searches a month. Full reference lists, queries shown, sources linked.