How to generate a claim chart using Pearl

Once you have identified potential prior art, go to the Contest listing and click on the Pearl banner. All submissions must be generated using Pearl in order to be accepted. 

On the contest page, click on the patent number which is linked to an easier to read format, along with some additional analysis of the patent, located on Unified Patents' Portal.

Take note of a few things here: 

• The priority date. The prior art you are looking for needs to predate the priority date.
• The abstract that describes the invention at a high level. This will help you formulate your initial search query.
• The specific claims. These will help you zero in on the exact parts of this patent that need to be invalidated by the prior art you find.
• The citations. These are the known prior art. What you find needs to be different than what’s referenced here.

Then use one of the tools listed below or one of the tools already linked to (with a pre-populated search query) in the “Overview” tab of the contest that you’re entering.

Create the Claim Chart using Pearl

Once you’ve found what you think represents prior art that predates the priority date, and that shows that it describes the same thing as what’s claimed in the patent, and which isn’t already listed as prior art, you will need to use Pearl to generate a claim chart. Pearl can generate a claim chart that contains more than one prior art reference.

See How to use Pearl to generate an invalidity claim chart for instructions. You can still edit your Pearl-generated claim chart in Microsoft Word, or upload the .docx file into Google Docs to edit before submitting it to a contest.

Is there a particular citation format to use?

Yes. Pearl will generate citations, but you can modify the format. See instructions below for citing patent prior art and non-patent prior art below. 

In general, citations have two parts: 1) a reference to the name of the prior art and 2) a reference to where within that piece of prior art the quote (or figure) can be found. While there are many ways this can be done, some commonly used formats with different options for abbreviations are shown below.

Citation format for patent literature

Easy ways to cite to a patent or patent publication (U.S., or foreign) include using the last three numbers of their patent number, or using the last name of the first named inventor of the patent, which is found next to the “(72)” section on each patent publication. You can set the citation name in Pearl under "Short Title."

• U.S. Patent 1,234,567 = 567 Patent
• U.S. Patent Publication 1999/7654321 = 321 Patent
• Patent with first named inventor Robert Smith = Smith

For prior art that has numbered columns and numbered lines (e.g., issued U.S. Patents), the citation should include the column(s) and line(s) in which the quote that is being cited appears.

For prior art that includes numbered paragraphs (e.g., U.S. Patent Publications, some foreign patent publications), the citation should include the paragraph(s) in which the quote that is being cited appears.

For prior art that has numbered pages and numbered lines (e.g., some foreign patent publications), the citation should include the column(s) and line(s) in which the quote that is being cited appears.

When citing to figures of patent literature, these are cited by the figure number.

Also see our instructional video on the citation format for other patents as prior art.

Citation format for all other prior art

When citing to non-patent literature, a short name can be used for the name of the document. Alternatively, the last name of the first author can be used.

• ANSI/IEEE Std. 802.11, 1999 Edition = 802.11-1999
• Jeffery et al., Rearchitecting Kubernetes for the Edge (April 26, 2021) = Jeffrey

For prior art that has only page numbers (e.g., most non-patent literature), the citation should include the page on which the quote is found. If the prior art includes a figure, the citation should cite the figure number and the page on which the figure is found.