Patexia Prior Art contests are searches commissioned by businesses to determine crucial information about patents they own, or are considering buying or licensing. By participating in our Prior Art Contests and the Patexia community, you can earn money while building your reputation and developing industry connections and experience.

See our Patent and Prior Art Basics guide for general information about patents and prior art.

Conducting a Patexia Prior Art Search

1 . Choose a contest.

2. Familiarize yourself with the question, patent (if any), latest date for prior art and any specific requests in the contest.

Carefully read over and highlight key points in the contest description and/or patent.
Consider outlining the question and/or patent for yourself.
If given a specific patent
consider making a claim chart to break down the patent’s claims and track how they relate to references you find in your search. For more information, see this claim chart guide and this example.
Review the patent file history. While not included in Patexia’s patent database, a patent’s file history contains detailed information about the Patent Examiner’s search and the prior art that was already considered during the patent application review. File histories are available from the USPTO’s website at http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/pair.
As you are familiarizing yourself with the question/patent, create a list of keywords that could be useful in your search.

3. Conduct the search

If you haven’t done so already, create a list of search terms, both broad and narrow.
Places to search:
- Patexia patent database
- Academic databases, including Google Scholar and IEEE Xplore
- Other digital archives
- University and local libraries
- Get creative - Patent related information could come from any source and in any language!
- For a further list of resources, check out our Prior Art Search Resources Guide.

4. Submit your results

When you are ready to submit references, go the main page of the contest and click on the “Submit Your Entry” button. Please submit references according to the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals as adapted by the US National Library of Medicine (commonly referred to as Vancouver style).

This short video guides you through the process of submitting your references.

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