Ask NLPatent Prompt Engineering

Ask NLPatent is an incredibly helpful feature for better understanding your result. We've gone over the basics of how to use NLPatent in our Ask NLPatent Article. Writing good prompts is the key to getting clear, useful answers from this feature. Below you’ll find important considerations, best practices, and example prompts you can adapt.

General Prompt Tips

Understanding how Ask NLPatent works is crucial to writing good prompts.

Minor Notes:

• Scope of analysis: Answers are based only on the English specification text of a patent. AskNLPatent cannot interpret figures or bibliographic information.
  • Example: “What other jurisdictions is this patent in?” → will not yield results.
• Patent-specific answers: Questions are always in reference to a specific patent. You can compare patents, but only if you reference a patent number or bring in text from another result into the chat.
• No dataset-wide summaries: AskNLPatent does not provide aggregate statistics across collections of patents.
  • Example: “How many patents were published between 2019 and 2025 from the EPO?” → will not yield results.
• Prompts are independent of Search Query: This means that the answer does not take anything in the search query and refinement when it answers a question. (I.e. no influence from the natural langauage query, document number or keyword query).
• Avoid scoring prompts: Large language models are not mathematical engines.
  • Example: “Give this patent a score out of 5 for relevancy” → not recommended.
• Use “Table” instead of “chart”: The word “chart” may generate a flowchart. If you want a table of results, use Table.

Tips for Writing Prompts

1. Be Specific

Broad prompts lead to vague results. Focus on a feature, process, or claim(s)

2. Guide the Output Format

Guide AskNLPatent by specifying the output format.

3. Guide the Style of the Answer

Set clear expectations for how AskNLPatent should respond.

4. Experiment and Refine

Start with a simple version of your question, then adjust until you get the level of detail you need.

Prompt Library

Once you’re familiar with how to write prompts, here are example prompts you can use directly or adapt:

Prompts for Prosecution

Does this patent mention:
a) key feature A
b) key feature B
c) key feature C
Where are these features mentioned?

What processes are covered in this patent? Explain the processes described in a flowchart

If features X, Y, Z are mentioned, generate a table showing me which passages contain these features.

Does this patent address the following problem in a specific way?
Problem: …
Solution Approach: …
Answer with Yes or No, followed by a short reason.

Identify the key novel features of this patent as bullet points.

List the features that are not covered by claim 1. For each feature, explain why it falls outside the claim language and include an exact quotation.

In a single sentence, characterize the breadth of claim 1 — narrow, moderate, or broad — and explain why.

Invalidity Prompts

Based on claims X, Y, and Z of Patent #, how similar is this patent to Patent #?”

What features are in this patent? Show overlap with claims X, Y, Z of Patent # and indicate where they are mentioned.”

Generate a comparison chart between this patent and Patent X. Could this patent be used to invalidate X? If so, why?”

Office Action Prompts

Does this patent teach [insert concept]? If so, where is that mentioned in the patent?”

Other Useful Prompts

Is feature X mentioned in this patent? Answer Yes or No.

What does [term] mean in the context of this patent?

Compare this patent to Patent A and Patent B. Create a Table comparing them side by side.

Compare Family Member A to Family Member B. What are the key differences?

Is component X mentioned in the mixture? If so, what concentration or range is described, and where is it mentioned?”