Skip to main content

Frequently Asked Questions

How does Evalify relate to a manual FTO / clearance analysis?​

Evalify automates the mechanical work of a clearance analysis — decomposition, searching, claim charting, legal-status assessment, and risk scoring — and delivers it as a structured work-product in minutes. It is best used as a rigorous first pass and a force-multiplier: it does the breadth-and-charting groundwork so your billable time goes to review, judgment, and strategy rather than search and chart assembly. It augments the analysis; it does not replace the practitioner.

Can I rely on the output as an opinion of counsel?​

No. Evalify produces an automated FTO assessment and analytical work-product — not an opinion of counsel, and not legal advice. It is designed to inform and accelerate your analysis and to give you an evidence-linked, defensible basis for it. The professional opinion, and the professional judgment behind it, remain yours.

For each aspect, Evalify runs a semantic and classification-based search across a comprehensive, licensed global patent corpus, then screens candidates for relevance so the analysis concentrates on references that plausibly read on the subject matter. As with any search, completeness depends on how precisely the subject matter is described and scoped — which is why the aspect-review step (and your curation of it) materially affects recall. See Analysis Methodology.

How are the claim charts constructed?​

Evalify retrieves the independent claims of the relevant references and builds a limitation-by-limitation claim chart for each aspect — an all-elements mapping of each claim limitation to the corresponding feature of the subject matter, identifying the deciding limitation. The chart shows the basis for each read so you can verify and extend it.

Does it analyze the doctrine of equivalents?​

Evalify performs an element-by-element (literal-style) mapping of claim limitations to the subject matter. It does not purport to render a doctrine-of-equivalents analysis — equivalents, prosecution-history estoppel, and claim construction remain matters for your professional judgment. Where the Quality Cross-check identifies a limitation that a doctrine-of-equivalents argument could reach, it surfaces it as a flag for you to examine — a prompt for your analysis, not a rendered equivalents opinion. The claim charts are structured to give you a clear basis from which to conduct that analysis.

Which jurisdictions does it cover?​

Evalify works from a global patent corpus and lets you set the territorial scope of each analysis to the jurisdictions relevant to the matter — either an explicit list of offices or a preset (for example the major five: US, EP, JP, CN, KR). Scope is selected when you configure the analysis and drives both the search and the assessment. Note that PCT / WO is not one of the default freedom-to-operate offices; select it explicitly if you need it assessed.

Can a product be blocked in one country but clear in another?​

Yes — and Evalify reports it that way. Freedom to operate is a per-market question: a patent granted in the US says nothing about Europe or Japan. Evalify computes a separate clearance for each searched market from that market's own patents, so "blocked in the US, clear in EP/JP/CN/KR" is a finding, not a decorative map. A block confined to some markets reads as a conditional position — clear in the others as searched, with a redesign or market-avoidance path for the one that blocks. Foreign clearance is always scoped to the markets actually searched (stated as "as searched"), and a market outside your scope is shown as not searched, never as clear. See Clearance by Jurisdiction.

Does Evalify search design patents?​

No. Evalify's Freedom-to-Operate analysis assesses utility patents and utility models — it evaluates whether a product's technical features read on active patent claims. Design patents are not searched or assessed.

What patent data does it use?​

Analyses are grounded in a comprehensive, licensed global patent database — search, bibliographic data, claims, patent families, and legal status — rather than the AI model's own knowledge. Grounding the analysis in authoritative data is what makes the output defensible rather than speculative.

What sources does the prior-art (non-patent-literature) search use?​

Beyond patents, Evalify searches open scholarly literature for prior-art / invalidity evidence against the strongest blockers. It draws on OpenAlex (academic literature across all fields), arXiv (software, AI, and computing preprints), PubMed (biomedical and life sciences), and IETF RFCs (networking and internet standards), choosing the sources that fit each patent's technical field. Candidates are filtered to references that genuinely predate the patent's filing and screened for relevance to the claim, so what surfaces is real prior art rather than keyword noise.

Each analysis records both the sources it searched and the specific references it cited — with the source, publication date, and a link for each — so you can see exactly where the evidence came from. The in-report assistant can answer both which sources Evalify uses in general and which ones were cited in this particular analysis.

Each relevant reference is assessed for current legal status (in force, lapsed, expired, abandoned, or pending), with patent-family context and estimated term. Risk is weighted by enforceability — an expired or abandoned reference is treated very differently from an active one — and pending applications are surfaced as a distinct future-risk category rather than current blockers.

How is client confidentiality handled?​

Confidentiality is treated as fundamental, precisely because the platform handles unpublished inventions and sensitive matters. Your content is not used to train AI models. The AI runs on enterprise infrastructure selected specifically for its data-governance and no-retention guarantees. Handling of any given matter within your practice remains subject to your own professional obligations.

How current is the analysis, and can I keep it current?​

An analysis is a point-in-time assessment. Because the landscape shifts as applications publish and grant, you can place a Counsel Grade matter under monitoring — a standing, set-and-forget watch that re-checks the landscape on your chosen schedule and alerts you to concrete legal events, not a moving score.

What it watches for:

  • New relevant patents — a newly published patent that reads on one of your patentable features.
  • A pending patent granting — and when that happens, the now-enforceable granted claims are captured and flagged so you can review whether the granted scope now reads on your product. This grant-and-gap check is the single most useful monitoring signal.
  • A blocker lapsing, expiring or being abandoned — a risk-reducing event, flagged distinctly so you know freedom has improved, not just worsened.
  • Any other legal-status change on a patent the analysis is tracking.

How you control it:

  • Track specific patents. Beyond the patents the analysis already surfaced, you can name any patent numbers you want watched — a known competitor filing, a parent case — and they're checked every cycle.
  • Choose which events alert you. Everything is recorded in the analysis's event log; you decide which event types actually email you. Recipients and tracked patents can be changed anytime without interrupting the watch.
  • Set the frequency — daily through quarterly.

What it costs: monitoring is billed per check via its own subscription on that analysis — you're invoiced only for the checks that actually run, and you can stop anytime. Enabling it is available on Counsel Grade analyses.

How long does an analysis take?​

Typically a few minutes. It runs server-side, so you don't need to keep the session open — you're notified when the report is ready.

Which tier should I use?​

Match the tier to the matter: lighter tiers for early triage or budget-constrained screens, and Counsel Grade — the fullest search, charting, and analysis — for clearance work where the output needs to withstand scrutiny. See Running an Analysis.

Can I refine my analysis and re-run it? Does it cost another credit?​

Yes — an analysis isn't frozen. You can adjust it to reflect your judgment: exclude a patent that isn't relevant, mark one as your own, remove or add an aspect, or — on Counsel Grade — rewrite an aspect with AI assistance. Your edits are always saved, and re-running regenerates the search, claim charts, score and opinion against your amended inputs.

How re-runs are counted:

  • Refinements — excluding a patent, marking a patent as your own, or deleting an aspect — re-run free, as often as you like.
  • Search-changing edits — adding a new aspect or rewriting an aspect's claim — come with a set of free re-runs included in your analysis. Beyond that, re-running is treated as a new search and uses one credit for that analysis type. (Your edits are still saved either way; you just need a credit to re-run and apply them.)

Editing an aspect with AI is a Counsel Grade feature — Standard analyses can still exclude/include and remove aspects, but not the AI-assisted rewrite.

Can I buy in bulk or pay by invoice instead of by card?​

Yes. Eligible business accounts can order analysis credits in bulk and pay by a net-terms invoice rather than an instant card charge. The invoice lets you pay by card, bank transfer, or ACH direct debit, and the credits are added to your account once the invoice is paid. See Plans & Billing.

How do I export or share a report?​

Export is available on every plan, and what you can produce depends on the tier. Standard exports the visual FTO Brief as a PDF. Counsel Grade opens the full Export Composer: it produces both the FTO Brief and the full report — each as a PDF or an editable Word (.docx) — plus a short cover email, and you control which sections appear and in what order, set the cover, header, footer, disclaimer, and fonts, and save your firm's setup as a reusable preset. The preview shows the actual PDF — true pages and page count — before you download. Anything you refined in Review Mode is already applied, so the export matches the report exactly. See Exporting & Sharing.

Can Evalify be branded for our firm?​

Yes — enterprise white-labeling is available. Your firm's Evalify can carry your own logo, brand colour, and typography across your whole team, applied automatically for everyone on your organization's email domain. It's configured for you rather than self-serve — contact us to enable it for your organization.

What input produces the best analysis?​

A technically specific description of the subject matter — a specification, invention disclosure, or detailed technical write-up that sets out how the product actually works. Precision in the input drives precision in the decomposition, search, and charting.

What languages does Evalify support? Can I upload non-English documents?​

Yes. Evalify processes PDFs in any language. It automatically detects the document's language, and both your uploaded document and any non-English prior art — Japanese, Chinese, Korean, German, and others — are translated to English. All results are delivered in English: the technical aspects, claim charts, scores, the FTO opinion, and the executive summary. Where an infringement read hinges on a translated term of art, the report flags that specific term alongside its original-language wording, so you can verify the construction against the original claim.