Patent crowd search
Description
Traditional patent searches are often limited by time, geography and individual perspective. A patent crowd search overcomes these constraints by engaging a vetted community – sometimes thousands – of experts who work simultaneously to uncover prior art across languages, industries and jurisdictions.
Each participant receives a defined research brief, usually framed as a "challenge" or "bounty." Submissions are evaluated for relevance and quality by subject-matter experts and algorithmic ranking systems, ensuring only the strongest findings are shared with the client. This crowdsourced model combines human curiosity and domain knowledge with intelligent workflow automation. It shortens search timelines, widens discovery scope and improves accuracy by tapping into diverse expertise across disciplines and languages.
Example use cases
- Invalidity: Identify prior art that may challenge the novelty of an existing patent.
- Patentability: Evaluate whether new inventions are truly unique before filing.
- FTO: Detect potential infringement risks before product launch.
- Intelligence: Track competitor innovation trends and R&D focus areas.
- Optimization: Support IP strategy decisions on renewals, licensing or divestment.
Key benefits
RWS perspective
At RWS, patent crowd search is an integral part of how we help clients protect and strengthen intellectual property portfolios. Our IP research services combine global crowdsourcing networks with advanced search technology and human expert validation.
We manage end-to-end search programs – from challenge design and data curation to quality control and result analysis – ensuring findings meet legal, linguistic and technical standards worldwide. This Human + Technology approach blends the precision of AI-enabled search tools with the contextual judgment of trained researchers. The outcome is faster discovery, richer insight and higher confidence in strategic IP decisions.