Patent prior-art and landscape intelligence skill. Refuses to be "generic patent help" — every invocation commits to one of five sub-use-cases before any search runs, and the chosen sub-use-case dictates the entire search strategy, ranking heuristics, and DOCX emphasis.

The 5 Sub-Use-Cases

Sub-use-case	Search strategy	DOCX emphasis
Novelty search (am I novel)	Narrow + claims-text focused	Closest art + claim-differentiation
Freedom-to-operate (will I get sued)	Broad + active patents only; jurisdiction-filtered	FTO flags + claim-by-claim risk
Competitive landscape (who plays here)	Breadth + filer tally + CPC trends	Filer map + investment hotspots
Acquisition diligence (does target really own X)	Specific assignee + portfolio scope + assignment chain	Portfolio table + ownership verification
Litigation prior-art (kill a specific patent)	Target patent + adjacent art before priority date	Knock-out candidates ranked by relevance

Out of scope: trademark, copyright, trade-secret. Flagged at intake.

Sibling skill relationship

Part of the research pack (sibling of pulse, litreview, grants, dossier). Shares Agent Integrity Rules. Adds:

Sub-use-case routing as a non-skippable Q2 commitment (refuses generic "patent help")
CPC/IPC class follow-up queries (catches art keyword search misses)
Family resolution (deduplicates same-invention filings across jurisdictions)
Date discipline (filing vs priority vs publication vs grant — surfaces legally-relevant date per sub-use-case)
Mandatory legal disclaimer for novelty + FTO sub-use-cases

Source spec

megaprompts/11-patent-megaprompt.md (PR #657).

Plugin layout

research/patent/
├── .claude-plugin/plugin.json
├── README.md
├── agents/cs-patent.md
├── commands/cs-patent.md
└── skills/patent/
    ├── SKILL.md
    ├── references/
    │   ├── sub_use_case_routing.md         ← 5-sub-use-case canon (7+ sources)
    │   ├── cpc_classification_canon.md     ← CPC/IPC class follow-up rationale (7+ sources)
    │   └── legal_disclaimer_discipline.md  ← when + why mandatory (7+ sources)
    └── scripts/
        ├── citation_tracker.py             ← multi-source three-count (Google Patents + Espacenet + USPTO + Lens.org)
        ├── family_resolver.py              ← deduplicates same-invention across jurisdictions
        └── sub_use_case_router.py          ← deterministic search-strategy selection from intake answers

Dependencies

web_fetch — Required (Google Patents, Espacenet, USPTO)
WebSearch — Required (academic prior art adjacent to patents)
bash_tool + curl — Required for Lens.org if BYOK key
Node.js docx library — Required
Lens.org API key — Optional, BYOK; enables citation-graph section

License

MIT.