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name: prior-art-summary language: en description: Generates structured summaries of prior art references for patent prosecution, validity analysis, and freedom-to-operate assessments. Maps disclosures to claim elements with precise citations. Use when summarizing prior art, analyzing patent landscapes, mapping references to claims, or preparing office action responses.

Prior Art Summary

Synthesizes prior art references into structured summaries mapping disclosures to claim elements for rapid landscape assessment.

Prerequisites

• Prior art references — patents, applications, publications, product docs, or public disclosures
• Invention description — claims or specification under analysis
• Scope directive — prosecution, validity/invalidity, or FTO

Workflow

1. Executive Overview

Produce a table covering:

• Total references reviewed (count)
• Most material references (top 3-5 with one-line rationale)
• Key gaps (claim elements with no or weak coverage)
• Art type breakdown (patents / applications / publications / other)

2. Individual Reference Summaries

For each reference:

Field	Content
Document ID	Patent/pub number, DOI, or identifier
Title	Full title
Date	Pub/issue date; note effective prior art date if different
Inventor(s)/Author(s)	Names
Technical field	CPC/IPC classes or subject domain
Assignee/Publisher	Entity

Then include:

• Disclosure summary — 2-4 sentences on core technical contribution
• Key features — bulleted list with exact quoted language and precise citation (¶, col:line, page, figure)
• Gaps — what the reference does NOT disclose relative to the invention

3. Claim-Element Mapping

Claim Element	Ref. 1	Ref. 2	Ref. 3
Element A	¶[0032], Fig. 3	—	p. 12
Element B	—	Col. 4:15-22	—

Legend: ✓ full disclosure, ~ partial, — absent. Always include citation location.

4. Combination Analysis

For each potentially obvious combination:

• References combined — which refs
• Motivation to combine — analogous art rationale, explicit suggestions, design incentives
• Missing elements — what remains undisclosed even in combination

5. Timeline

Chronological list by effective date, noting critical date boundaries (priority, filing, publication dates).

Guardrails

• Cite precisely — every factual assertion needs ¶, col:line, page, or figure number
• No legal conclusions — organize facts for attorney judgment; never state claims are anticipated or obvious
• Analogous art — flag references outside the immediate field with rationale for qualification
• Prior art status — note references whose qualification depends on date analysis (pre-AIA vs. AIA § 102) [VERIFY]
• Foreign-language refs — flag language, provide translated key passages, note if machine-translated
• Figures — describe depicted features with enough detail to be useful without viewing the original
• Terminology — define specialized terms on first use in brackets
• Order by relevance to claim elements; use chronological only if requested or analytically significant