Flowleap Patent

FlowLeap Patent

Auth and global flags: see flowleap-shared.

EP/WO search runs on the user's own EPO patent-data key. A provider_keys_required error is a user-action stop for that office, never an exhausted route: do not fall back to web-scraped patent data, deliver whatever the live office (US via flowleap uspto search) returns in full, name the gap as a missing-key gap, and ask for the free key at the end of the turn. A zero-result search is not a gate — reformulate and persist as normal. See flowleap-keys.

Search Patents

flowleap patent search --query <query> [flags]

Runs the search_patents tool (provider: epo_ops) on the Tools facade — the single agent surface for patent data. Returns results with publication number, title, applicant, and date; the per-source provider route this used to call is a retired endpoint. You never name the surface yourself: the command carries it.

Jurisdiction is set with --countries — patent search has no --source flag (that flag belongs to academic search, for scholar vs arxiv).

For US-specific searches use flowleap uspto search (ODP Lucene syntax).

Response Format (JSON)

Returns an array of results, each carrying a document identifier, title, applicant(s), publication date, and abstract, for example:

[
  {
    "docId": "EP1234567.A1",
    "title": "Solar Panel with Improved Efficiency",
    "applicants": ["SolarCorp Inc."],
    "publicationDate": "20240115",
    "abstract": "..."
  }
]

Field names are illustrative — inspect a live --json response for the exact keys. Strip the kind suffix (EP1234567.A1 → EP1234567) to use the document identifier as the <patent-number> argument to ops and the tools facade.

Writing the Query — You Write the CQL

There is no server-side query builder: you turn the description into CQL yourself, with the three steps below. None of them is optional.

Step 1 — extract the terms (mandatory, before any CQL)

List every specific noun phrase in the description: materials, mechanisms, subject matter ("sulfide glass ceramic", "foreign object detection", "prior art"). These are your candidate discriminating terms. For each one you leave out of the query, state why. Uncertainty about phrasing ("glass ceramic" vs "glass-ceramic") is a reason to OR both forms, never to drop the term. The most common failure is dropping the phrase that is the invention.

Step 2 — write the query

Every query needs at least one discriminating term — one that separates this invention from the millions of generic patents in its technology area. A CPC code is never discriminating: it names a neighbourhood, not a house. For "AI for patent analysis", the discriminating term is ta="patent analysis" — never just ta="artificial intelligence", and ic=G06N alone returns every machine-learning patent ever filed.

flowleap patent search --query 'pa=GOOGLE* AND ta="machine learning" AND ic=G06N' --limit 20

Fields — do not guess field names; every field in your query must be here:

Hard constraints — these produce API errors, not bad results:

• Maximum ~10 terms per query (MaximumTotalTerms beyond that).
• No wildcards on ic/cpc/cl/pn (TruncationForbidden).
• Terms must be at least 3 characters — OPS rejects shorter prefixes with 400 CLIENT.PrefixTooShort. Spell the word out (ti="ultraviolet", not ti="uv").
• Operators AND/OR/NOT uppercase; phrases in "double quotes".
• Grouping: parentheses group complete field=value clauses. Repeat the field inside the parentheses; never put the parentheses inside the value.

(ic=H02J OR ic=B60L)                        valid — covers two classes
(ta="glass ceramic" OR ta="glass-ceramic")  valid — covers both word forms
ta=(turbine OR blade)                       NOT CQL — hard OPS 404

Choosing terms: ta carries the discrimination (the specific subject matter, not the technology area). A classification is never discriminating on its own — pair it with a ta term, and when the invention spans classes, OR the classes: (ic=G06N OR ic=G06F). Aim for two or three discriminating terms: one extra term routinely cuts a count by two orders of magnitude. For combination inventions ("drone inspecting turbine blades"), the pair of terms is the discrimination — ta=drone AND ta="turbine blade" — so keep both; dropping the category word loses the invention.

Step 3 — probe the count (mandatory, before trusting any results)

Use --count-only: it asks for range 1-1 with details=false (no per-document bibliography fan-out), so a probe is cheap — a count is all you want here:

flowleap --json patent search --query 'ta="foreign object" AND ta=charging' --count-only

The JSON payload is { query, total }. (Equivalent raw-tool probe: flowleap --json tools run search_patents query='…' range=1-1 details=false.) Note: total counts the full CQL result set — a --countries filter narrows the returned documents, never the total.

• Over ~1,000 hits: too broad — add the next discriminating term from your Step 1 list and probe again.
• Under 10: too narrow — drop the classification, OR in synonyms, use the parent CPC class, widen dates.

A query you never probed is a guess; in a prior-art search a query returning thousands of hits instead of tens means the closest art is never seen. A prior-art search starts broad and narrows — you cannot notice what a too-narrow query never returned.

Recall vs precision

A judgement, not a setting:

• Broad (recall — novelty, FTO): drop the classification, widen dates, OR in synonyms, use the parent CPC class.
• Precise (precision — closest few documents to read in full): add a second ta term, narrow the classification to a subgroup, tighten dates.
• Balanced (default): one discriminating ta term, one classification, one date bound.

Verify CPC Codes — Never Guess

CPC reclassifies (photovoltaics moved from H01L31 to H10F in 2023 and the backfile was rewritten), so a remembered code may silently return the wrong corpus. The official, version-stamped scheme is queryable:

flowleap patstat query "SELECT symbol, title FROM flowleap.cpc_scheme WHERE title ILIKE '%photovoltaic%' ORDER BY symbol LIMIT 15" --question "candidate CPC codes for photovoltaics"

Read the results at the right level: a 4-char class carries only the headline (H10F = "inorganic semiconductor devices sensitive to radiation"); the specific technology titles live in its groups (H10F10/00, H10F71/00 …). Match keywords against group titles, then search with the 4-char class (ic=H10F) or the exact group (cpc=H10F10/00).

Workflow: Description to Patent Results

1. Extract the candidate terms from the description (Step 1).
2. Write the CQL (Step 2) and probe the count (Step 3); refine until workable.
3. Run the search: flowleap --json patent search --query "<CQL>" --limit 20. The JSON payload is { total, docs }. Results arrive in EPO OPS default order (no relevance ranking — recent publications tend to come first), so read the whole page, not just the top hits; the CQL itself is the only relevance control.