# 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.

- Workflow type: agent
- Services: USPTO PatentsView, Slack
- Categories: Product, Operations
- Published: 2026-06-30

## 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).

## Prompt

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Reminder on PatentsView usage: every request needs the q parameter, sort fields must be listed in f, withdrawn patents are excluded by default, and the active host is search.patentsview.org/api/v1.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.

## How to customize

- 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.

## FAQ

### Does this cover patent applications, or only granted patents?

Both. It pulls newly granted patents and freshly published applications (pre-grant publications), so you see what competitors are working on years before grants issue, not only what they already own.

### What if my competitors had a quiet week with no filings?

You still get a short Slack message confirming the radar ran and found nothing new. That way silence does not look like a broken automation, and you know the watch is alive.

### How accurate is the plain-English summary?

Summaries are generated from the patent's own brief summary or claim text, condensed to 2-3 sentences. They are great for triage, not for a freedom-to-operate analysis. Treat them as a starting point and click through to the USPTO record for anything that matters.

### Does this cover patents filed outside the United States?

No. PatentsView only covers the US patent system. For non-US filings you would need an additional source (WIPO, EPO Espacenet, etc.).

### Can I send the digest somewhere besides Slack?

Yes. Tell Geni you want the digest emailed, posted to Microsoft Teams, written to a Notion page, or logged to a Google Sheet instead, and it will swap the destination.

Use this prompt in General Input: https://www.generalinput.com/prompts/weekly-competitor-patent-radar-in-slack