5 Workflows for IP and Patent Litigation

Patent and IP litigation teams spend years refining how they work: how they analyze claims, structure arguments, and apply judgment to complex technical facts. That expertise shouldn’t be lost to one-off documents or recreated from scratch every time a familiar task comes up.

With Harvey’s Workflow Builder, teams can turn their preferred way of working into reusable workflows that anyone in the organization can run. Instead of choosing between speed and rigor, lawyers can embed their standards directly into the tools they use every day — helping teams produce consistent, high-quality work at scale.

Below are five examples of how IP and patent litigation teams can incorporate Workflows across routine tasks, and how you can adapt them to fit your own approach.

1. Drafting Infringement Claim Charts

Claim charts are foundational to any patent infringement case, and they’re also one of the most time-intensive parts of early case development. Associates often spend hours manually comparing claims against dense technical documentation, even when much of the analysis follows familiar patterns.

This workflow helps teams get to a strong first draft faster, while preserving the level of detail and rigor required for claim-by-claim analysis.

Workflow blocks:

1. Ask the user to upload the patent-in-suit, including all relevant claims that will be asserted.
2. Ask the user to upload technical documentation for the accused product. This can include product specifications, user manuals, marketing materials, technical diagrams, or any combination of documentation that describes how the product works.
3. Use a prompt to identify each claim element from the asserted claims and extract the corresponding technical features from the accused product documentation. This step creates the foundation for the element-by-element comparison.
4. Use a prompt to generate a detailed claim chart that maps each claim element to specific features of the accused product. The prompt should instruct Harvey to cite specific page numbers and sections from the product documentation, provide technical explanations for how each element is met, and flag any elements where the mapping is uncertain or requires further investigation.
5. Display the completed claim chart to the user in a structured table format with columns for claim elements, accused product features, supporting documentation, and analysis.

This workflow gives teams a consistent, reviewable starting point for infringement analysis. Instead of spending time assembling the first draft, lawyers can focus on validating the analysis, identifying gaps, and refining arguments.

2. Analyzing Patent Office Actions

Reviewing patent office actions is a critical step in prosecution, but it usually involves pulling together information scattered across dense examiner reasoning, prior art references, and claim language. While the analysis itself requires judgment, much of the initial work is about organizing the issues so teams can quickly decide how to respond.

This workflow helps teams surface what matters most in an office action, giving them a clearer starting point for developing response strategies.

Workflow blocks:

1. Ask the user to upload the relevant office action that needs to be addressed.
2. Use a prompt to analyze the office action and extract key information including the type of rejections, the prior art references cited, the specific claims rejected, and the examiner's reasoning for each rejection.
3. Use one or more prompts to generate potential response strategies for each rejection. This can include asking Harvey to suggest claim amendments that would overcome the rejection, clarify definiteness, find support for claim limitations, or propose arguments based on differences between the prior art and the claimed invention. You can customize this prompt to align with your firm's preferred response strategies or to incorporate specific technical expertise.
4. Display the analysis and response strategies to the user, organized by rejection type and claim number.

Once the analysis is organized, lawyers can focus on choosing and refining the right response strategy. Teams can further customize the workflow by asking Harvey to use that analysis to draft responses to the client, adapting tone, structure, and detail to fit their preferred approach.

3. Generating Invalidity Contentions From Prior Art

Preparing invalidity contentions often means working through large volumes of prior art and conducting detailed, limitation-by-limitation analysis across multiple asserted claims. Even for experienced teams, organizing that work in a clear and consistent way can be time-consuming.

This workflow helps streamline the early stages of invalidity analysis, giving teams a structured foundation they can build on and refine.

Workflow blocks:

1. Ask the user to upload the patent document that needs to be analyzed for invalidity.
2. Ask the user to upload prior art references that will form the basis of the invalidity contentions. This can include patents, publications, and product documentation.
3. Ask the user to provide further relevant context, or specify which claims or limitations to focus on.
4. Use a prompt to analyze each asserted claim element and compare it to the prior art references on a limitation-by-limitation basis.
5. Display the invalidity contentions to the user in a clear, structured table chart for each claim analyzed.

By producing a consistent, claim-by-claim view of the prior art, teams can more easily validate their analysis and ensure comprehensive coverage across multiple patents. Rather than assembling contentions from scratch, lawyers can focus on pressure-testing arguments, identifying weaknesses, and shaping strategy based on the strongest available references.

4. Drafting Patent License Agreements

Drafting patent license agreements requires balancing technical scope, business objectives, and risk allocation. Even when strong precedents exist, adapting them to new deal terms can be a manual and repetitive process.

This workflow helps teams move more quickly from business terms to a usable first draft, while staying anchored in firm-approved language and structures.

Workflow blocks:

1. Ask the user to upload the relevant patent license.
2. Ask the user to upload or describe the key terms of the license they need to draft, including the exclusivity type, regional restrictions, royalty or financing structure, and any special provisions. Alternatively, embed a prior precedent example and prompt Harvey to extract those terms.
3. Use a prompt to draft a complete license agreement that incorporates the business terms specified, following the structure and style of any embedded precedent agreements from the firm. You can customize this prompt to prioritize certain precedent clauses, incorporate firm-specific drafting preferences, or address particular client risk tolerances.
4. Display the draft license agreement to the user for further refinement.

Grounding drafts in firm precedents and preferred language helps teams maintain consistency across agreements while reducing the time spent on initial drafting. The workflow is particularly valuable when handling multiple licenses simultaneously or when working with unfamiliar technology areas, as it maintains drafting consistency regardless of the attorney's experience level.

5. Preparing Filing Documents

Patent filings demand precision, from correctly identifying inventors to ensuring every required field is completed in the right format. Even when teams rely on proven templates, populating those documents correctly can be a repetitive and time-consuming process.

This workflow helps streamline filing preparation by adapting your firm’s established templates to new applications, while preserving the details that matter for accuracy and compliance.

Workflow blocks:

1. Ask the user to upload key application information including inventor names and addresses, assignee information, application type, title of the invention, and any priority claims or related applications.
2. Ask the user to upload precedent filing documents that Harvey should use as templates. Alternatively, embed a firm precedent document to ensure consistent formatting and inclusion of all necessary provisions.
3. Use a prompt to extract the relevant information from the precedent documents and identify all fields that need to be populated with the new application information.
4. Use a prompt to generate complete filing documents by populating the precedent templates with the new application information. The prompt should ensure all required fields are completed, formatting abides by filing requirements, and any firm-specific provisions or optional fields from the precedents are appropriately included or adapted. You can customize this prompt to automatically incorporate firm-specific preferences, such as particular correspondence address formats, standard fee payment methods, or preferred language for certain declarations.
5. Display the completed filing documents to the user for review.

This workflow helps ensure the completed documents follow firm standards, while minimizing manual entry and repetitive checks. Practitioners can quickly review and validate the filings before submission, spending less time on administrative prep and more time ensuring accuracy and readiness for filing.

Patent litigation and prosecution involve unique technical and strategic challenges, but much of the work follows familiar patterns. These five workflow examples show how teams can use Harvey to embed their expertise into repeatable processes, speeding up routine analysis while maintaining the rigor their work demands. The goal is simple: spend less time on tedious tasks and more time on the strategic decisions that actually matter.

To learn more about how Workflows can help your organization, contact our team: