Assistant

The assistant is the panel on the right side of the app, a conversational companion that knows your matter inside out and can help you draft, research, and edit it. It is specialised in IP law (patent drafting, prosecution rules, jurisdictional differences) and built specifically for the work that happens on this platform.

The panel is available on every screen: with a matter open it sits beside the editors, and without one it accompanies the global tools (Prior Art, Classifications), so you can ask questions while you browse. Collapse or reopen it with the icon at the right edge; the app remembers your choice.

You talk to it in plain natural language. It understands the same smart references you use elsewhere (claim 1, FIG. 2, element names) and replies with chips you can click to navigate.

What the assistant can read

The assistant has full read access to your matter. You can ask it questions about anything in it without copy-pasting context. It can pull up:

  • Claims (the full claim set, including dependencies and history)
  • Claim diagnostics (the live errors and warnings on the claims page, such as missing dependencies or no transition phrase)
  • Application sections (Background, Summary, Detailed Description, and so on)
  • Figures and reference-sign elements (the matter's figures, their pins, and the named elements they reference)
  • Bookmarked patents (any prior art you've saved to the matter)
  • Saved web links (pages you've added to the matter context)

See the References tab for a full explanation of how chips work for patents and web links.

Ask things like "do my dependent claims align with the description?", "summarise figure 3", or "what does US 10,123,456 say about heat dissipation?" and it has the data on hand.

Beyond your matter, the assistant can reach out to two external sources:

  • Patent databases (search the patent databases with the same backend the Prior Art page uses, then pull a patent's full record into the conversation: bibliographic details and abstract, specific claims or the whole claim set, targeted passages of the description, CPC/IPC classifications, and the cross-jurisdiction patent family. It can also explore the CPC classification scheme itself, searching it by topic to find relevant codes, or looking up any code to see what it covers and browse its place in the tree)
  • The open web (search the internet and fetch the actual page, not just a snippet, when it needs to read something carefully)

You can ask it to run a prior-art search, look up a standard, find a regulator's guidance, or read a competitor's product page.

What the assistant can change

The assistant can edit your matter, but it never does so silently. Every edit it proposes appears as a pending change that you review and accept (or reject), either:

  • via Accept (or Accept All) in the pending-changes bar above the assistant input, or
  • inline on the affected claim, section, figure, or bookmark.

Changes the assistant can propose:

  • Add, edit, or delete claims
  • Edit application sections
  • Add or remove bookmarked patents, and save web links
  • Add, edit, or delete figure elements and pins

Attaching context with @-mentions

Type @ in the assistant input to open a picker. You can attach a specific claim, figure, element, or bookmarked patent directly to the message, and the assistant treats it as a first-class input rather than something it has to go look up. This is the fastest way to ask focused questions like "@claim 5, can we narrow this?" or "compare @figure 2 to @US10123456".

@-mentions are distinct from the inline chips that appear when you type "claim 5" in prose: mentions are explicit attachments, chips are recognised references.

Memory

Memory is what the assistant carries from one conversation to the next, so you never have to re-explain how you work or what a matter is about. Open it with the memory button at the top of the assistant panel.

The assistant writes to memory on its own as it learns something durable about you or a case, and you can read, edit, or delete anything it saves, as well as add your own facts. Each entry shows when it was last updated and whether you or the assistant wrote it. Edit an assistant-written entry and it becomes yours.

Memory is organised into two scopes:

  • User preferences apply across every matter. Use them for how you work in general: the offices you practise before, your default filing strategy, and your house style for drafting claims.
  • Matter memory applies only to the open matter, so it appears only when one is open. Use it for facts about that specific case: what the invention is, the closest prior art, and the claim strategy you are pursuing.

Within each scope, General facts load into every conversation, while the claim-related facts (Claim drafting preferences at the user level, Claim strategy at the matter level) are pulled in only when the assistant works on your claims.

To add a fact, click the Create memory row at the bottom of any list and type. Entries save automatically when you click away, and an empty one is discarded.

Conversation history

Conversations are saved automatically. Use the history button at the top of the assistant panel to browse past conversations and jump back into one. From the history list you can also rename a conversation to something memorable or delete one you no longer need (right-click an entry, or use its more-actions menu). The + button beside the history button starts a fresh conversation at any time.

Every conversation belongs to either a matter or to you directly (a global conversation, started without a matter open). The panel shows the conversations for where you are: the open matter's list in a matter, your global list outside one. A global conversation you have open follows you when you open a matter, so switching context never empties the panel. The history view shows everything in one list. Matter conversations carry a small badge naming their matter, and opening one reopens that matter with the conversation ready in the panel.

A global conversation becomes part of a matter in two ways: send a message in it while that matter is open (your first message claims it for the matter), or use Move into matter… on its menu, useful when exploratory research turns out to belong to a case. Either way the move is one-way: once a conversation is part of a matter it stays there, and it can never move between matters, so a discussion of one client's case can't end up in another's context.

Fullscreen and docking

The assistant is one panel that can sit docked beside your work or fill the screen. The expand button at the top of the docked panel takes the current conversation fullscreen; the Assistant entry in the sidebar does the same and keeps you in your open matter. To dock it again, open any page from the sidebar: the panel slides back beside that page with the same conversation open, so you can keep talking while you work.

Reviewed sources and patents

The globe and document buttons at the top of the panel list every web page and every patent the current conversation has reviewed, so you can revisit what the assistant read. A web source opens in a new tab; a patent opens in the patent viewer.

Model

Pick which Claude model powers the conversation, either from the model picker at the bottom of the assistant panel or under Settings → AI. Best Available (Auto) is the default and tracks our current recommended model. You can also choose explicitly: Opus is best for the hardest drafting work, Sonnet is the balanced everyday choice, and Haiku is fast for simple edits.

The model is matter-scoped, so a complex EP application can run on Opus while a quick utility filing uses Sonnet. Outside a matter, the picker applies to the current session only.

Jurisdiction awareness

The assistant adapts to the active application's jurisdiction (US, EP, or PCT). It pulls in the matching drafting rules (35 USC §§101/102/103/112 for US, EPC Articles 52–84 and the problem-solution approach for EP) so the suggestions you get match the office you're filing in. Set the jurisdiction on the application and the assistant follows.