Prior-Art Search API for LegalTech Startups

Add Patent Intelligence to Your LegalTech Product Without Building Patent Search Infrastructure

A production-ready Prior-Art Search API for LegalTech startups that need fast, reliable patent discovery inside legal workflows. Open-source core. Privacy-first. Transparent pricing. Built for sensitive legal data.

An initiative by

Who This Is For

Built for LegalTech teams building:

AI legal assistants and copilots
Legal research platforms
Document drafting and review tools
Litigation support software
Due-diligence and risk analysis tools
Contract AI expanding into IP workflows

If your product needs to answer “Does existing patent prior art affect this?”, this API fits.

The Problem

Patent Search Is Heavy Infrastructure for LegalTech Teams

Patent data is massive and domain-specific
Legal teams expect instant, accurate results
Generic RAG and LLM search fall short
Patent tools are opaque black boxes
Building and maintaining search infra slows product teams

A “simple patent lookup” becomes a multi-quarter engineering project.

The Solution

A Plug-and-Play Prior-Art Search API

Dedicated prior-art search engine exposed via API
Semantic search across global patent data
Built for legal research and novelty checks
Open-source core for transparency
Privacy-first by design

No patent ingestion.
No search infrastructure.
No black boxes.

How It Works

Send legal or technical context

Pass an invention description, claim draft, or legal query to the API.

PQAI runs semantic prior-art search

The engine identifies relevant patents based on meaning, not keywords.

Receive ranked prior art

Get structured results ranked by relevance and similarity.

Surface results in legal workflows

Display prior art inside your research, drafting, or review interface.

What LegalTech Teams Build With This

LegalTech startups use the API to power:

All embedded inside your product, under your brand.

Patent awareness inside legal copilots

Prior-art lookup during drafting or review

Background IP research for litigation teams

Risk screening during due diligence

“Related patents” panels in legal research tools

Why LegalTech Teams Choose PQAI

This is not a general-purpose vector database or a DIY RAG stack.
It’s purpose-built for patent prior-art discovery.

Purpose-Built for Patents

Not a general-purpose vector DB or RAG stack.

Fast Time to Market

Integrate in days, not months.

Transparent by Design

Open-source core. Auditable behavior.

Security-First

Designed for confidential legal data.

Transparent, Predictable Pricing

Usage-based. No hidden fees. Easy to model costs.

Simple, Transparent Pricing

Straightforward usage-based pricing designed for early-stage and scaling LegalTech teams.

Security & Data Handling

Built for sensitive legal workflows.

Security is treated as baseline infrastructure.

Hear from our customers

The use of search terms, applicants and patent classes is a common way of formulating a search pattern. However, we have found that knowledge of patent classes and how they relate to subject matter is not so widespread, especially among users who do not deal with patents on a daily basis. Among other things, PQAI suggests appropriate classes based on a text, which is extremely helpful and time-saving. It also widens the scope of the search.

We use PQAI a lot and can highly recommend it to other users.

PQAI is a fantastic project that provides a user with a powerful patent search tool at their fingertips. It is by far the easiest and most effective way to quickly track down relevant IP utilising natural language queries, surpassing all the other free services I have tried in this field, and even some paid databases. Its API is also a great feature that has been integrated into some of our in-house tools, allowing our designers and researchers to quickly get a view of the patent landscape for a particular idea, without the need to switch their attention to another platform. In a world where some are suspicious of the rise and power of AI, it is wonderful to see it being put to good use like this and freely available to everyone interested.

As an AI Fellow at R42 Group, I spearheaded the development of a cutting-edge patent search tool tailored for the life sciences industry. Leveraging PQAI's robust API as the backend system, I was able to create an innovative solution that significantly enhances patent search capabilities. The swift and expert support from the PQAI team played a crucial role in the success of this project, enabling seamless integration and rapid development.

I value PQAI a lot because it offers a powerful to retrieve patents via a semantic search. My impression is that this semantic search is carried out within the abstracts.

I find the various endpoints very useful, for example that endpoint which returns independent claims specifically.

really liked the experience with PQAI so far! I'm primarily using the semantic search and semantic CPC lookup, mostly through the API and sometimes over the website. Response times are really good, and the API has a nice developer experience.

Designed for LegalTech Startups

You can start small, integrate quickly, and scale safely.

A seed-stage LegalTech startup

A product expanding beyond contracts or case law

A funded platform adding patent intelligence

Get Started

If your LegalTech product needs prior-art search under the hood, PQAI gives you the fastest path to production.