Weekly competitor patent radar in Slack
Every Monday at 8am, post a single Slack digest of last week's new US patents and applications from the competitors on your watch list.
Integrations
USPTO PatentsView
Slack
Type
Categories
- Product
- Operations
Build me a competitor patent radar that runs every Monday at 8:00am on a cron trigger.
Inputs I should be able to configure: (1) a list of competitor company names to use as patent assignees, (2) the Slack channel to post the digest to, and (3) the lookback window (default 7 days).
On each run, use USPTO PatentsView to find new filings from those competitors in the lookback window:
1. Call Search Granted Patents filtered to those assignees with patent_date in the last 7 days. Pull patent_id, patent_title, patent_abstract, patent_date, assignees, and inventors.
2. Call Search Pre-Grant Publications filtered to those assignees with filing_date in the last 7 days. Pull document_number, publication title, abstract, filing_date, assignees, and inventors.
3. For each granted patent, call Get Granted Patent Brief Summary (and Get Granted Patent Claims if the brief summary is empty) and write a 2-3 sentence plain-English summary of what the invention actually does.
Reminder on PatentsView usage: every request needs the q parameter, sort fields must be listed in f, withdrawn patents are excluded by default, and the active host is search.patentsview.org/api/v1.
Then post a single digest message to the configured Slack channel using Send a Message. Group entries by competitor (one section per assignee). For each filing show:
- The patent title as a link to the USPTO record (https://patents.google.com/patent/US{patent_id} for grants, https://patents.google.com/patent/US{document_number}A1 for pre-grant pubs)
- Assignee name
- Inventor names
- Filing date or grant date, and whether it is a granted patent or pre-grant publication
- The 2-3 sentence plain-English summary
Use Slack mrkdwn formatting (*bold* for competitor headers, <url|text> for links). Cap each summary at 3 sentences so the digest stays scannable.
If no new filings dropped that week, still post a short message to the channel like "No new patent filings from your watch list this week." so the channel knows the radar is alive.
What it does
- Every Monday at 8am, scans the US patent system for last week's new filings from the competitors on your watch list.
- Pulls both newly granted patents and freshly published applications so you catch competitors early, not 18 months after the fact.
- Writes a 2-3 sentence plain-English summary of each filing so non-lawyers can tell at a glance what it is actually about.
- Posts one tidy digest to your chosen Slack channel, grouped by competitor, with title, inventors, dates, and a link to the USPTO record.
What you’ll need
- A USPTO PatentsView API key (free, the USPTO emails you one after you sign up at data.uspto.gov).
- A Slack workspace and permission to post in the channel you want the digest to land in.
- A short list of competitor company names to watch (the names they file patents under).
How to customize it
- Change the schedule (e.g. Friday afternoon instead of Monday morning) or the lookback window (30 days for a slower beat).
- Swap the channel, or send to a private channel for a smaller competitive intel circle.
- Add or remove competitors from the watch list, or split into multiple radars by industry segment.
Use cases
- Research & Monitoring
- Notifications & Alerts
- Daily Digests