AI patent drafting for law firms

Where the hours go in a drafting practice

Most of the time on a new application is not spent on the hard part. The claim set, the fallback positions and the choice of embodiments are where an attorney earns the fee. The rest is assembly: restating the disclosure as a background, mirroring each claim in the summary, walking through every figure, and getting the headings right for the office. That assembly is where a first draft from software saves time, because the attorney checks and rewrites it instead of producing it from a blank page.

PatentAssist produces a draft we describe as 60-70% complete. It is a first draft for a qualified professional to review, not a filing. The attorney still decides scope, adds the matter the disclosure left out and signs off on every section.

One tool for USPTO, EPO and DPMA formats

Firms that handle both US and European work know the two offices expect different documents. The USPTO recommends a specification order in 37 CFR 1.77(b). The EPO's Rule 42 EPC requires the description to state the technical field, the background art, the problem and solution and at least one way of carrying out the invention, and Rule 43 EPC governs the form of the claims. In PatentAssist you pick the office when you start, and the sections, their order and the export follow it.

A US case and its European counterpart are two drafts, each in its own office's structure. The European draft is not a US specification with new headings. For the procedure behind each filing, see our guides to the European patent application, the German patent application and the US provisional application.

A drafting workflow that keeps the attorney in charge

1. 1

   Intake

   Paste or upload the client's disclosure, a research paper or design notes. The AI fills the structured disclosure form and you correct it before anything else is generated.

2. 2

   Claims

   Independent and dependent claims come first. The attorney settles scope here, because the description is then written around the claims you approved.

3. 3

   Specification

   The full description and abstract follow in the office format you picked. Figures you upload get AI-written brief descriptions; AI drawings are available in beta.

4. 4

   Edit

   Work section by section in the browser editor. The copilot broadens or narrows a claim, restructures dependents or rewrites a passage when asked.

5. 5

   Firm review

   Export a .docx and run it through the review your firm already uses: track changes, a second reader, the partner sign-off. Nothing is filed from PatentAssist.

Claims first is deliberate. When the description is written after the claims are fixed, every claimed feature has support and every claim term is used the same way in the description. That is the consistency a reviewing partner checks for, and it is easier to keep across a team when every draft starts from the same structure. See the drafting workflow and the full feature list.

Prior art before you draft

Free patent search covers USPTO, EPO and IP India records, with AI or classic field search, and no account is needed. Inside the app, a patentability search report (beta) extracts the key technical features of a disclosure, searches the three offices and scores each result for feature coverage, in a report you can edit and export as .docx. It is a triage tool for deciding where the claims should start, not a substitute for a professional search or an opinion. See prior art search.

Client confidentiality

An unfiled disclosure is the most sensitive document a firm holds for its client. What PatentAssist commits to in its terms and policies:

• Client content never trains any AI model, ours or the provider's.
• AI drafting and search run on Azure OpenAI in Sweden Central and Italy North. The app, database and file storage are hosted in Azure Central India. Every provider and region is listed on the sub-processors page.
• Encryption in transit (TLS 1.2 or later) and at rest (AES-256), with role-based access control.
• An Article 28 GDPR data processing agreement covers every account, with 30 days' notice before a sub-processor is added and breach notice within 48 hours.
• The terms of service treat invention details as confidential information.

PatentAssist does not itself hold SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification; its infrastructure providers do. The full detail, including what US firms should consider about foreign filing licenses and export control, is on the security page.

Pricing for a firm

Lite and Pro include the same features; the price buys AI credits. Pro is $90 a month with 1,500 credits, which the app estimates at about 15 complete patent applications a month. A year is billed at $900. Firms with several practitioners can ask for an Enterprise quote, which adds drafting workflows built to the firm's requirements, dashboards and support within 24 hours. Prices are in USD. See pricing or talk to us.

PatentAssist does not draft USPTO or EPO office action responses. Its office action feature is in beta for IP India First Examination Reports only, so for US and European prosecution it is a drafting and search tool.