Frequently asked questions

No. 50search is a software platform. We do not practice law, do not represent inventors before the USPTO, and do not provide legal advice. Every output — the novelty memo, the adversarial review, the provisional draft — is a drafting aid. Before you file, we strongly recommend you have a USPTO-registered patent practitioner review your draft.

A USPTO-ready ZIP containing: a provisional specification (1,500–2,500 words, Word + PDF), a claims document (1 independent + 8–15 dependent claims), an abstract (under 150 words), SB/16 cover sheet + ADS + SB/15A micro-entity forms pre-filled with your inventor info, and an adversarial review flagging likely examiner objections. We ship within 24 hours of payment.

We run keyword + classification search against Google Patents, USPTO PPUBS, EPO Espacenet, and Lens.org, then re-rank the top candidates with an embedding-based similarity model. You get the top 10 closest references plus a 3-paragraph novelty memo with a composite score. The memo is cached and public (SEO-indexed at 50search.com/search/<id>) unless you explicitly flag it as private.

During the draft workflow, your disclosure is stored in our encrypted database and only used to generate your draft. We never send it to third-party training pipelines. After a provisional is filed and its priority date is secured, you can make the disclosure public (many inventors publish on GitHub or a blog); before filing, assume anything sent to 50search should be treated like a pre-filing disclosure under §102(b) — the one-year grace period starts when YOU publish, not when we generate your draft.

Yes. The ZIP contains Word (.docx) files for the specification and claims, so you can edit every sentence in Microsoft Word or Google Docs before uploading to the USPTO Patent Center. The adversarial review section flags specific sentences and claims that a USPTO examiner is likely to cite as weak — edit those first.

A micro-entity is a USPTO fee-reduction status: if you qualify, provisional filing fees drop from $320 (regular) or $160 (small) to $65. Most solo inventors qualify: you must have (1) gross income under roughly $241,000 in the previous year, (2) be named on 4 or fewer prior US applications, and (3) not be obligated to assign to a larger entity. If you select micro-entity in the wizard, we pre-fill SB/15A so it's ready to sign. Confirm with a practitioner before filing — this is not legal advice.

A provisional expires exactly 12 months after its filing date. To keep the priority date, you must file a non-provisional (or PCT international application) within that window. Our /manage dashboard tracks the conversion deadline for every filing you originate on 50search and sends email reminders at 90, 60, 30, and 7 days out.

No. $199 is a one-time, per-draft flat fee. The only subscription we offer is Pro ($29/month), which gets you unlimited prior-art searches (free tier is rate-limited), draft discounts ($149 per draft), and /manage portfolio tracking.

If the generated draft doesn't substantively describe what you disclosed (e.g. our spec is about something else entirely, or the claims don't reference the key mechanism of your invention), email support@50search.com within 7 days of delivery with the specific mismatch and we'll either regenerate or refund. We do not refund for stylistic preferences or for drafts that accurately reflect a disclosure the inventor later wants to revise.

Right now we only generate US provisional drafts. The prior-art search does include foreign references (EP via Espacenet, CN utility models via Google Patents, JP via Lens.org) because those affect your US patentability. For PCT or direct foreign filings, you'll want to work with a registered practitioner in the target jurisdiction.

Yes — in fact, that's our recommended path. Use 50search to do the prior-art search, generate a first-draft specification + claims, and run the adversarial review. Then send the whole ZIP to your attorney for review and final filing. A lot of firms charge $3,000–$7,000 for a provisional; the bottleneck is usually the drafting time. Handing them an AI-assisted first draft cuts that bill substantially.

50search is built by Naveen Dhillon, a solo inventor who wanted the tooling he couldn't find when filing his own provisionals. The prior-art engine is the same engine behind patent-engine.dev. The platform is not venture-funded; all revenue goes toward platform hosting + continued development.