Patent Signals (Company)

Overview

Company-level US patent signals, refreshed weekly from the USPTO grant bulk file (PTGRXML,
published Tuesdays), PTAB proceedings, and the USPTO assignment feed. Each record is enriched
against Autobound's company truth data and delivered under signal_type: patents,
association: company. Use it to spot R&D investment, portfolio momentum, IP disputes, and
which outside counsel a company retains.

For the inventor (person) view of the same grants, see Patent Signals (Inventor).

Available Subtypes

Schema

Every record has top-level envelope fields, a company object, and a subtype-specific data
object.

Top-Level Fields

Company Object

Enriched from Autobound's company truth data. Unknown fields are null — never guessed.

Data Object

Prose fields on the LLM-backed subtypes (patentGrant, patentChallenge): summary,
detail, invention_explanation, technologies_mentioned (string[]), tags (string[]).
Every subtype carries source_url, uspto_assignee, event_at, event_kind.

patentGrant — patent_number (US11234567), patent_title, patent_abstract,
grant_date, cpc_primary, cpc (≤5), tech_area, inventors[]
({ name, linkedin_url, is_primary, status }). event_kind = grant_date.

portfolioVelocity — window_asof_date, grants_30d, grants_60d, grants_90d,
grants_180d, grants_365d, grant_velocity_ratio, grant_direction
(accelerating/steady/decelerating), challenges_made and challenges_received
(each { "90d", "365d" }), unique_inventors, primary_cpc_subclass, cpc_section_mix,
top_tech_areas[]. event_kind = velocity_snapshot.

patentChallenge — company is the petitioner. trial_number, trial_type,
trial_status, challenge_role, patent_owner_name, patent_owner_domain,
petitioner_counsel_name, challenged_patent_number, challenged_patent_title,
challenged_patent_inventors[], petition_filing_date, institution_decision_date,
latest_decision_date, termination_date, technology_center_art_unit, why_this_fight,
challenge_context, competitors_mentioned[] (the patent owner). event_kind is the stage:
petition_filed/instituted/decided/terminated.

usesLawFirm — law_firm_name, law_firm_domain, relationship_basis (prosecution),
attorney_name, representative_matter, matter_date. event_kind = representation.

Example (patentGrant)

{
  "signal_id": "b1f0…",
  "batch_id": "patents-2026-09-06",
  "signal_type": "patents",
  "signal_subtype": "patentGrant",
  "detected_at": "2026-09-06T07:03:11Z",
  "association": "company",
  "company": {
    "name": "Acme Robotics",
    "domain": "acmerobotics.com",
    "linkedin_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/acme-robotics",
    "industries": ["Robotics"],
    "employee_count_low": null,
    "employee_count_high": null,
    "description": "Autonomous warehouse robotics."
  },
  "data": {
    "summary": "Acme Robotics was granted a US patent on adaptive gripper control.",
    "patent_number": "US11987654",
    "patent_title": "Adaptive gripper control for variable-geometry payloads",
    "grant_date": "2026-09-01",
    "cpc_primary": { "code": "B25J9/16", "label": "Program-controlled manipulators" },
    "tech_area": "Robotics & Automation",
    "technologies_mentioned": ["force feedback", "grasp planning"],
    "inventors": [
      { "name": "Dana Ng", "linkedin_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/dana-ng", "is_primary": true, "status": "resolved" }
    ],
    "event_at": "2026-09-01",
    "event_kind": "grant_date",
    "source_url": "https://patents.google.com/patent/US11987654"
  }
}

📘

No scoring fields

Patent signals do not carry relevance, confidence, or sentiment. Every delivered
field is factual (from USPTO/PTAB) or LLM-written prose — nothing is scored.

Migrating from patents / Patent Filings

This replaces the legacy single Patent Filings signal (type patents,
subtypes newCorePatent/productization). It is split into patents-company and
patents-contact, and the payload is the enriched schema above. The old slugs — patents,
patent-filing, patent — still resolve as aliases to patents-company so existing
queries keep working, but they are deprecated and targeted for removal ~2026-10-09. Move
filters to patents-company (and patents-contact for inventors) before then.

Coverage

• Bucket: autobound-patents-company (mirrored to your S3 delivery bucket where configured)
• Refresh: weekly (USPTO grants publish Tuesdays)
• Association: company
• Subtypes: 4 (patentGrant, portfolioVelocity, patentChallenge, usesLawFirm)