Imported from gfodor/legal-skills (patent-examine/SKILL.md). Install upstream with npx skills add gfodor/legal-skills --skill patent-examine. Copyright stays with the author.

Recurrent simulated patent examination

Run a version-controlled applicant/examiner dialogue. Keep the main agent in the applicant/drafter role and one persistent subagent in the examiner role per cycle. Do not describe the result as an actual USPTO allowance or a guarantee of validity.

Read before acting

Read all of these files:

• references/examiner-protocol.md for the examiner's role and decision contract.
• references/office-action-format.md for rejection sufficiency and response rules.
• references/official-sources.md for the current-law and prior-art source hierarchy.

Copy and complete assets/examination-intake.yaml. Use assets/examiner-handoff.md, assets/prior-art-validation.md, and assets/applicant-response.md in every cycle.

If the sibling ../patent-audit skill is installed, read its SKILL.md and use its deterministic pre-pass to produce parsed.json, mechanical findings, claim dependencies, and date calculations. Re-run that pre-pass after claim or specification amendments that can affect its outputs. Do not treat a prior audit as a substitute for this examination loop.

Non-negotiable state model

Maintain three separate artifacts:

1. Ground truth: the authoritative editable application. Do not change it during an examiner dialogue.
2. Proposed candidate: a full clean application containing the exact amendments being offered to the current examiner. Arguments alone may leave it byte-for-byte identical to the ground truth.
3. Prosecution record: Office actions, applicant responses, interview summaries, reference copies, search logs, issue ledger, versions, and hashes.

An examiner may conditionally clear only a complete proposed candidate, never a promise to draft language later. After clearance, apply that candidate verbatim to the ground truth and verify the content hash. Any unapproved substantive deviation voids that clearance and must return to the same examiner or a fresh cycle.

Use scripts/cycle_state.py to make the version lock auditable. Label each component consistently so proposal and ground-truth hashes compare correctly:

python scripts/cycle_state.py init --run-dir examination_run `
  --candidate application=application.docx --candidate drawings=drawings.pdf

python scripts/cycle_state.py snapshot --run-dir examination_run `
  --candidate application=proposal/application.docx `
  --candidate drawings=proposal/drawings.pdf

python scripts/cycle_state.py record --run-dir examination_run `
  --examiner examiner-01 --decision conditional-allowable `
  --document examination_run/examiner-01/notice-of-allowability.md

# Apply the cleared files to the real ground truth, then verify rather than copy:
python scripts/cycle_state.py promote --run-dir examination_run `
  --candidate application=application.docx --candidate drawings=drawings.pdf

python scripts/cycle_state.py status --run-dir examination_run

Use the relevant document/PDF tooling to preserve layout, tracked changes, claim numbering, equations, and drawings. Never edit a PDF extraction and call it the source document.

Phase 0 - Build the examination packet

Create a dedicated run directory. Preserve the user's original and identify the editable ground truth. Complete the intake without guessing. Request or locate, as applicable:

• the complete specification, claims, abstract, drawings, sequence listings, and appendices;
• filing, priority, benefit, continuity, inventorship, disclosure, sale/use, and AIA/pre-AIA facts;
• related applications and patents, IDS materials, cited art, search reports, and prosecution history;
• full copies of material patent and non-patent references with publication dates;
• declarations, test data, unexpected-results evidence, and claim-construction facts;
• commercial objectives, indispensable claim scope, and supported fallback positions.

Missing material is not a favorable fact. Mark it missing and distinguish cannot assess from no rejection found.

Before dispatching a merits examiner, run a completeness gate. If the record lacks material needed to establish what is being examined or which prior-art framework applies—such as readable claims/specification, drawings necessary to understand the disclosure, or enough filing/priority facts to assign effective dates—send a bounded preliminary packet and require an immediate INCOMPLETE decision. Do not ask that examiner to perform an exhaustive merits search that cannot yield a valid clearance. Use its deficiency list to obtain the missing material; if the material is declared unavailable, terminate blocked with zero clearance credit.

For a pre-filing draft, use the planned nonprovisional filing date. If none is supplied, use the run date as an expressly hypothetical conservative filing date and apply the AIA framework; do not credit an asserted earlier priority/benefit date without the supporting application and claim-by-claim support. This assumption enables a simulation only and does not establish a legal priority date or deadline.

Refresh the legal source record at the start of the run. Browse current official statutes, rules, MPEP pages, examination memoranda, and technology-specific guidance. Record URLs, revision/effective dates, access date, and which framework applies to this application's dates. Use the source hierarchy in official-sources.md.

Perform or update a documented prior-art search before the first merits decision. Search the claim as a whole and its inventive concepts, synonyms, CPC/USPC classes, inventors/assignees, citations, and relevant non-patent literature. Preserve the queries, databases, dates, classifications, and full references. A simulated examiner who did not search cannot honestly clear novelty or nonobviousness. Run search in staged passes and return a supported action using the best verified art at hand; do not defer the action indefinitely in pursuit of an unknowable exhaustive search. State coverage limits and continue searching after amendments when needed.

Phase 1 - Start one fresh examiner cycle

Create a unique examiner context ID such as examiner-01. Spawn one subagent with a fresh context and no prior examiner's discussion or conclusions. Provide only:

• the frozen ground-truth version and its version ID/hash;
• the completed handoff and intake;
• drawings as viewable images as well as source files when relevant;
• priority/continuity documents and prosecution history;
• known art, full reference copies, and the search log;
• examiner-protocol.md, office-action-format.md, and current official-source notes.

Tell the examiner not to inspect other examiners' run folders. The examiner must independently construe the claims, search further when tools permit, and evaluate every pending claim. Use the same subagent for all follow-up turns in this cycle; do not replace it merely because it maintains a rejection.

The examiner's first merits response must be a simulated non-final Office Action or an ALLOWABLE decision in the prescribed format. It must identify every claim's status and every rejection, objection, restriction/election issue, or requirement supported by the record. Citation and limitation mapping are mandatory for prior-art grounds. A cite is not a mapping: the examiner must explain what the reference actually teaches in context and how the relied-on embodiment, arrangement, and operation meet the claim under the stated construction.

Phase 2 - Conduct the applicant/examiner dialogue

For each Office Action:

1. Verify every legal citation, reference identity, publication/effective date, and quoted passage against the primary source.
2. Before drafting amendments or a merits response, independently run the prior-art-substance gate below for every 102/103 ground, including every new or modified ground. Use assets/prior-art-validation.md and preserve it in the prosecution record.
3. Put every ground and formal issue in a stable issue ledger. Track affected claims, evidence, response, amendment, support location, examiner disposition, and the outer agent's separate validation status.
4. Draft an applicant response in the supplied template. Address every rejection and objection distinctly, state whether it is traversed or cured, and respond claim-by-claim. Preserve alternative arguments when useful.
5. For each proposed amendment, provide exact marked-up language, a clean claim or specification replacement, support in the controlling disclosure/evidence, scope/commercial impact, and why it resolves the ground.
6. Keep the ground truth unchanged. Build a full proposed candidate and snapshot it. Give that exact candidate, the response, redline, support map, and updated ledger to the same examiner.
7. Ask the examiner to address every argument and amendment, then expressly maintain, modify, or withdraw each issue. New grounds require their own complete mapping and another response round. Use interview-style clarification where it narrows a real disagreement, and memorialize the result.
8. Repeat with the same examiner until it issues CONDITIONAL_ALLOWABLE, ALLOWABLE, or a genuine terminal impasse under the protocol.

Prior-art-substance gate

The outer agent must sanity-check the substance of every prior-art rejection rather than accepting the examiner's chart or search snippets. For each ground:

1. Read the complete claim in light of the specification and state the BRI actually being tested without importing unclaimed features.
2. Read the full relied-on reference and the cited passage in its surrounding disclosure. Trace figures, reference numerals, cross-references, and the relied-on embodiment. Distinguish an operative teaching from background discussion, a problem statement, an abandoned or criticized approach, a prophetic possibility, or a different alternative embodiment.
3. Reconstruct the claimed arrangement or process and the reference's arrangement or process in plain technical terms. For every limitation, record the exact cite, what the passage teaches in context, and whether the mapping is express, inherent, proposed 103 modification, or POSITA knowledge/evidence. Similar words, goals, or outputs alone do not establish the required structure, steps, relationships, conditions, or sequence. Conversely, do not demand the same label, purpose, or implementation detail when the claim does not require it.
4. For anticipation, verify that one enabled reference discloses the limitations in the claimed arrangement; do not assemble the claim from unrelated alternatives. For obviousness, identify the base embodiment, each actual difference, the exact modification or combination, the reason to make it, compatibility and reasonable expectation of success, and how the resulting system meets the whole claim.
5. Assign an outer validation status: prima-facie-supported, challenge-pending, or cannot-assess. Keep this separate from the examiner's maintained, modified, or withdrawn disposition. An unsupported status is available only after the reconsideration exchange below.

If the audit reveals a material mismatch, omission, ambiguous passage, or embodiment-stitching concern, do not yet label the rejection unsupported. Send a focused PRIOR_ART_ACCURACY_CHALLENGE from the validation template to the same examiner before proposing any curative amendment. Quote the exact claim language, identify the cited and conflicting context, explain the suspected error neutrally, and ask the examiner to reread the full reference and either:

• CONCUR_AND_WITHDRAW with the error identified;
• CORRECT_OR_MODIFY with a complete corrected mapping and ground; or
• MAINTAIN_WITH_SUPPORT with the construction, contextual disclosure, and reasoning that answer the concern.

Independently evaluate that response. Examiner agreement is useful but not dispositive. If the examiner concurs and withdraws, mark the outer status unsupported-examiner-concurred-and-withdrew. If it corrects or modifies the ground, mark the original validation superseded-by-modified-ground; treat materially new passages, references, claim constructions, or combination rationales as a modified or new ground that receives a fresh gate and a full opportunity to respond. If the examiner maintains a ground but still cannot support the disputed mapping, mark the outer status unsupported-on-current-record-examiner-maintained, traverse without narrowing, and keep the examiner issue outstanding. Do not represent an outer-agent disagreement as examiner withdrawal or allowance. Withdrawal of one ground is not a clearance unless the complete search, claim, issue, and formal-matter requirements for clearance are independently satisfied.

If the first reply does not address the focused concern, send one follow-up that identifies the omitted question. If the examiner again ignores it, relies on the same demonstrably mismatched passage without analysis, or silently changes theories, close that cycle as examiner-protocol-failure with zero clearance credit and start a new fresh cycle. Do not use protocol failure merely for a reasonable claim-construction or technical dispute; those remain in the ordinary dialogue.

Do not pressure the examiner to agree, reveal a target number of clearances, or cite token/time pressure. Persuasion must rest on the record, law, evidence, and exact claim language.

For a pending application, every amendment must have support in the application as filed and must not introduce new matter. For a pre-filing draft, additions may be made only from authentic inventor-supplied technical facts or evidence; label them for inventor confirmation and never fabricate disclosure merely to cure a rejection.

Phase 3 - Close and promote a cleared cycle

The current examiner may issue CONDITIONAL_ALLOWABLE only when all ledger items are resolved and the exact proposed candidate would be in condition for allowance. Its notice must identify the candidate hash, all pending claim statuses, the dispositive amendments/arguments, reasons for allowability, closest art, search scope, and any residual uncertainty. Formal matters still outstanding prevent clearance.

Before crediting that notice, confirm that every prior-art ground considered during the cycle has a completed validation record, every focused accuracy challenge has an examiner disposition and outer post-reconsideration determination, and no material cannot-assess item remains. An examiner clearance does not override an incomplete outer validation gate.

Only after that notice:

1. Apply the accepted candidate verbatim to the ground truth.
2. Re-render and inspect the entire application, not only changed pages.
3. Re-run deterministic parsing/mechanical checks affected by the amendments.
4. Run cycle_state.py promote against the ground-truth files. A hash mismatch voids the clearance until the same examiner reviews the actual applied version.
5. Preserve the Office Action, every response, redlines, clean candidate, reference set, search log, ledger, and notice in the cycle folder.

Phase 4 - Repeat with fresh examiners

After promotion, spawn a different fresh-context examiner and repeat Phases 1-3. The new examiner receives the current ground truth and evidence packet, but not earlier examiner reasoning, applicant dialogue, allowance rationale, or clearance count. Prior art and public prosecution materials may be included as raw evidence.

A clearance belongs only to the exact promoted version it examined. If any later examiner causes a substantive application change, the new version starts with zero qualifying clearances. Continue until two distinct fresh examiners independently clear the same promoted version. An examiner may clear it without amendments; record that as ALLOWABLE on the already-promoted version.

Termination conditions

Terminate successfully only when cycle_state.py status reports at least two distinct qualifying examiner IDs for the current promoted version and all of these are true:

• both examiners received complete enough packets and performed documented searches;
• every pending claim and every issue has an explicit disposition;
• every 102/103 ground, including each modified ground, has a completed substance- validation record with no challenge-pending or material cannot-assess status;
• no rejection, objection, restriction/election requirement, or formal requirement remains outstanding;
• both decisions identify the same application-content hash;
• no application-content change occurred after either qualifying clearance.

Terminate as blocked, without claiming success, when essential confidential or external evidence remains unavailable; reliable prior-art or legal-source access is impossible; the only cure would add unsupported new matter; no supported amendment can preserve a user-required objective; a statutory/priority defect is not curable by drafting; or a necessary inventor/applicant decision is missing. Exhaust reasonable in-scope research and narrower supported alternatives first. An arbitrary round cap, budget pressure, examiner fatigue, or repeated disagreement is not a success condition.

Final deliverables

Return:

• the final ground-truth application in its original editable format plus a clean rendered review copy;
• a version history with hashes and the exact two qualifying examiner context IDs;
• each simulated Office Action, applicant response, interview summary, issue ledger, prior-art validation record and accuracy-challenge exchange, amendment redline, search log, and allowance notice;
• a concise change/support/scope-impact table;
• unresolved cannot assess items and residual risks, including search limitations;
• a prominent statement that this was an AI simulation, not legal advice, an actual USPTO examination, or assurance of allowance, validity, or enforceability.

Do not file the application, submit an Office Action response, contact the USPTO, or make inventor declarations without the user's separate explicit authorization.