FTO Search

This video provides an end-to-end walkthrough of the Eureka FTO Search Agent, showing how it takes users from technical input and search filtering through feature extraction, keyword and classification expansion, search optimization, screening, claim charting, and final report generation. It demonstrates how the agent helps automate much of the traditionally slow and expensive FTO process, making it easier for IP and legal teams to identify potential risks, review relevant patents, and share structured findings, while ensuring that final legal conclusions remain with qualified professionals.

• Go to the Intellectual Properties section in Eureka.
  
  Select the Eureka FTO search agent to enter the freedom-to-operate workflow.
  
  Purpose: automate much of the traditionally slow, expensive, and hard-to-scale FTO process while keeping final legal judgment with qualified professionals.
• Use the authority filter to include or exclude jurisdictions.
  
  Use the legal status filter to focus on:
  
  Active/enforced patents
  
  Pending patents
  
  Optional inactive patents for historical context
  
  PCT designated stage patents that may enter national phase soon
  
  Open More filters to:
  
  Include or exclude specific assignees
  
  Reduce self-noise by excluding your own company
  
  Narrow by application date if needed
• Upload up to 10 images using the plus icon if helpful.
  
  Note: this is not image search.
  
  The agent converts images into textual descriptions using AI.
  
  Those descriptions are combined with your written technical solution to support the search.
• Choose an example technical solution, such as the elevator door monitoring system.
  
  Click the blue run arrow to start the analysis.
  
  The agent begins by summarizing and extracting features from your input.
• The agent rewrites your description into a more detailed summary.
  
  It may add implied details in blue.
  
  Review carefully and edit if needed:
  
  Remove incorrect implications
  
  Make minor wording changes
  
  Feature types include:
  
  Technical field: broad disciplinary area
  
  Core features: essential to the search strategy
  
  Essential features: important but editable
  
  Supporting features: helpful context
  
  You can hover over the info icon for definitions.
  
  Technical field and core features can be edited but not deleted.
  
  Essential and supporting features can be edited or deleted.
  
  Click Confirm and Run when ready.
• For each extracted feature, the agent generates:
  
  Keywords
  
  Related terms
  
  IPC codes
  
  CPC codes
  
  These are grouped by feature to support the search strategy.
  
  You can edit the groups to:
  
  Add new keyword groups
  
  Add keywords to existing groups
  
  Add IPC/CPC codes
  
  Save changes to rerun the analysis if needed.
• The agent merges keywords and classification codes into an initial query.
  
  This is an iterative, self-optimizing process.
  
  It measures performance using a recall score against an internal benchmark set of relevant patents.
  
  The agent adjusts the query over multiple iterations to improve recall.
  
  Target: reach about 90% recall.
  
  Once that threshold is reached, the agent performs a final semantic search to catch patents with different wording but similar meaning.
• The search may return many references, so the agent narrows them to the 100 most relevant.
  
  It evaluates patents more deeply using:
  
  Text
  
  Abstract
  
  Especially the first claim
  
  You can switch between result tabs:
  
  All references
  
  Top 100 retained references
  
  You can also:
  
  Save references to a workspace
  
  Import references from a workspace
  
  Edit the retained/excluded set manually
• The agent compares your invention’s extracted features against the claims of the retrieved patents.
  
  This is the key FTO step because claims define legal boundaries.
  
  It analyzes both:
  
  Independent claims
  
  Dependent claims
  
  For each patent, it identifies how many claims contain elements equivalent to your invention’s features.
  
  Use View details to see a side-by-side table of:
  
  Patent claim text
  
  Extracted claim features
  
  Your subject technology features
  
  AI equivalence determinations
• Patents are rated high, medium, or low relevance.
  
  The rating depends on:
  
  Patent legal status
  
  Whether there is at least one matching independent claim
  
  Typical interpretation:
  
  High: active patent with strong claim overlap
  
  Medium: at least one matching independent claim, but patent is pending
  
  Low: little/no overlap, or patent is expired/lapsed
  
  High-relevance patents are added to the report by default, but you can add or remove any references manually.
• You can remove a patent from the report by clicking Added.
  
  You can include medium- or low-relevance patents by toggling them to Added.
  
  You can also:
  
  Save to a workspace
  
  Add a missing reference manually
  
  Import references from a workspace
  
  The agent will run claim charting for any added reference before report generation.
• Click Generate FTO report and then View report.
  
  The report starts with an overview table of:
  
  Assignees
  
  Patents captured
  
  Grouping by relevance
  
  The rest of the report provides a full summary of the workflow, including:
  
  Search scope and entered technology
  
  Claim charts for highly relevant patents
  
  AI-generated technical summary
  
  Extracted technical features
  
  Keyword list and IPC/CPC codes
  
  Final search strategy
• Export the report to a Word document.
  
  Use the Share button to send a link to colleagues.
  
  This makes it easy to collaborate on the analysis inside or outside Eureka.
• The Eureka FTO agent automates the most time-consuming parts of FTO searching:
  
  Feature extraction
  
  Keyword expansion
  
  Search strategy building
  
  Screening
  
  Claim charting
  
  Reporting
  
  It helps IP and legal teams move faster and work at scale.
  
  Final legal judgment still remains with qualified professionals.