How a patent gets here
Every patent comes from an official USPTO source, links back to it, and is rechecked daily. New patents are added every week.
- 1Official Gazette lapses
The USPTO's weekly notice of patents that expired because a maintenance fee went unpaid. We take lapses 4 to 12 months old and drop any patent on a year of reinstatement notices.
Official Gazette for Patents - 2Full-term expirations
Patents filed 1996 through 2001 and granted within four years, whose 20-year term from filing has ended. Drug and chemistry classes are skipped because their terms can be extended.
Patent Public Search - 3Abandoned applications
Published applications filed 2013 to 2017 with no patent anywhere in their family and no family filings since. Labeled "likely abandoned" because the status is inferred.
Patent Public Search - 4Family clearance
Every US relative is checked. If a sibling patent could still be in force, or a continuation could still be pending, the patent is left out.
- 5Full file
Claims, description, up to eight original drawing sheets, family members and citations come from Patent Public Search. Nothing is added or invented.
- 6Daily recheck
Each day every listing is checked again against the newest Gazette and its current family. Anything that changed leaves the register.
Reinventing with Claude
Patent Yard doesn't run AI on its servers, so it stays free. Instead, every patent page and the invention studio write a careful prompt for your own Claude account, plus a PDF brief with the patent's claims, figures and original drawings. Paste the prompt into Claude, attach the brief, and Claude works through it with you: modern directions, a novelty screen, a provisional patent draft, concept sketches or a prototype plan.
Claude can't see patents filed after its training, so treat its novelty screen as a starting point and run the searches it suggests.
What you can do
- Make, use and sell what an expired or abandoned US patent describes. Nobody can enforce it against you in the US.
- Improve on it and patent the improvement, if the improvement is new and not obvious.
- File a provisional application yourself to lock in a filing date for 12 months.
What you can't do
- Patent the same invention. The published document is prior art against everyone, you included.
- Assume the whole product is free. A newer patent on some other part could still apply; we only check this patent's own family.
- Assume foreign rights are gone. We check US rights only.
Fine print
- Lapsed patents can be reinstated if the owner shows the missed payment was unintentional. Anyone who started using the invention during the lapse keeps limited "intervening rights" under 35 U.S.C. 41(c)(2).
- Likely abandoned status is inferred from USPTO records. Confirm it on Patent Center before relying on it.
- Patent Yard is not legal advice. For anything with real money behind it, talk to a registered patent attorney or agent.
Questions
What is a lapsed patent?
US patents need maintenance fees 3.5, 7.5 and 11.5 years after grant, with a six-month grace period. If the owner doesn't pay, the patent expires at the 4th, 8th or 12th anniversary of its grant, and the USPTO lists it in the Official Gazette. From then on nobody can enforce it.
What does "expired, full term" mean?
A US utility patent filed after June 8, 1995 lasts 20 years from its earliest non-provisional filing date, sometimes plus a term adjustment. The patents in this group were filed 1996 through 2001 and granted within four years of filing, which keeps any adjustment short, so their terms have ended.
Can I really build and sell these?
In the US, yes: an expired or abandoned patent gives no one the right to stop you. Two cautions. Other, newer patents might cover parts of a product you build, and foreign patents in the same family might still be alive. Check both before you invest serious money.
Can I patent one of these?
Not as it is. The published document is prior art. You can patent a genuine improvement that is new and not obvious, which is what the invention studio helps you find.
What does reserving do?
It holds a patent for you on Patent Yard for 30 days so other builders here can see someone is working on it. It is a courtesy between users, not a legal right. You can hold 5 at a time and renew in the last week.
Where do the drawings come from?
Every drawing is a page of the patent's own published document, cropped to the drawing and scaled down. We never add to them. If a patent has no drawings, Claude can sketch it from the text, clearly marked as not part of the patent.
How current is the data?
New patents are added every week after the Official Gazette publishes. Every listed patent is rechecked against USPTO records daily; the date of the last check is on each patent's page.
Is it really free?
Yes. Browsing, reserving and the invention studio are free. The AI work happens in your own Claude account, which has a free plan, and the USPTO charges its own filing fee (from $65 for a micro entity provisional).