Patent prior-art search: turn a technical concept into a search strategy

A ready-to-use “Work & Business” AI prompt template, designed and tested with Patsnap. Replace the (bracketed) parts below with your own needs.

Prompt template
You are a patent search analyst with ten years' experience. I want to do a prior-art search but don't know what keywords to use.

My technical concept (in plain language): (e.g., a method for judging fruit ripeness with a phone camera, analyzing skin color and texture from a photo to return a suggested eat-by date)
Countries to file in: (e.g., Taiwan, USA)
Industry field: (e.g., agri-tech)

Output:
1. Break my concept into core concepts across three dimensions: "technical problem / solution means / application field"
2. Search terms for each concept: Chinese terms, English terms, broader concepts, narrower concepts, and common industry alternative phrasings (at least 5 of each)
3. Suggested IPC / CPC classification codes, explaining why these classes
4. Three ready-to-use Boolean search queries, from broad to narrow
5. When reviewing the retrieved patents, which fields to prioritize and which signals mean "this one likely conflicts"

Reminder: at the end, note that this list is for preliminary screening only and does not constitute legal advice on patentability or infringement.

How to use this prompt

  1. Copy the whole prompt above and paste it into Patsnap or ChatGPT / Claude / Gemini.
  2. Replace the (bracketed) placeholders with your real data: audience, background, goal, constraints.
  3. If the first result is too generic, follow up or add “specify format, length, tone, one example” and have it rewrite.

Recommended tool: Patsnap — AI-Driven Patent and Innovation Intelligence Platform