Patently

Patently is a web platform for patent professionals, with tools for searching, drafting, prosecution, oppositions, licensing, and litigation. Patently Search ranks patents by relevance and offers semantic search that carries results into other patent workflows without exports. Create uses the Onardo AI assistant to draft claims, figures, and descriptions from invention disclosures. Mine maps claims against standards and technical documents and can produce downloadable reports. Rate supports shared ratings and projects for FTO, landscape, novelty, invalidity, and competitor work; License provides SEP data and analytics across 4G, 5G, Wi-Fi, and other technologies. Projects can use custom workflows, Word and Excel exports, and permissions with ethical walls and confidentiality barriers. The free plan is free for one user and individual use, with filtered asset search, Onardo chat, patent-family browsing, and link sharing. Law Firm+ and Business+ have custom pricing; Enterprise pricing is according to requirements. Patently says content is typically encrypted in transit and at rest, with AES-256 and TLS 1.2+ specified.

Patently brings patent search, analysis, drafting, and project tools into one web platform. Its free plan covers individual use, while team plans have custom or requirements-based pricing.

It suits attorneys, inventors, and in-house teams working on patent matters. The free plan is intended for individual use by one user.

Patently is a web platform for patent professionals who need search, drafting, analysis, and matter work in one place. It is best suited to attorneys, inventors, and in-house teams rather than occasional patent lookups. Its strongest case is an end-to-end workflow; the main trade-off is that serious team use moves to custom pricing.

Overview

Patently links patent discovery with the work that follows it: drafting, prosecution, oppositions, licensing, litigation, and collaborative project management. Search results can flow into later workflows without an export, which reduces handoffs when a question develops into a formal matter. That breadth is valuable for professional teams, but more than a casual researcher needs.

The platform says content is typically encrypted in transit and at rest, using AES-256 at rest and TLS 1.2 or higher in transit. It says personal data is not shared with LLM providers, while Onardo output is processed on secure on-premises servers in the UK. Onardo connects to OpenAI and Anthropic through secure API calls, with Anthropic data retention set to zero days. Patently makes a commercially reasonable effort to provide at least 99.9% annual uptime, subject to its stated exclusions.

Key features

Search, drafting, and claim work

Patently Search ranks patents by relevance and adds semantic search, so users can investigate concepts rather than rely solely on exact wording. Results can be handed directly to other patent workflows without exporting them. Patently Create uses the Onardo AI assistant to draft claims, figures, and full descriptions from invention disclosures. That can accelerate a first draft, but generated material still belongs in a professional review process.

Patently Mine maps claims against standards and other technical documents and produces downloadable reports. Patently Rate adds shared ratings and customizable freedom-to-operate, landscape, novelty, invalidity, and competitor projects. Together, these tools support repeatable analysis rather than leaving judgments in disconnected notes.

Licensing and team controls

Patently License provides standards-essential patent data and analytics covering ownership, geography, and technology across 4G, 5G, Wi-Fi, and later technologies. Custom workflows, Word and Excel exports, project-level permissions, ethical walls, and confidentiality barriers address the separation and reporting needs of legal work. The Law Firm+ tier also lists IPMS integration. Monitoring alerts, patent clustering, patent-family analysis, and claim analysis round out the research set.

Standard support consists of online documentation and videos, email support during UK weekday business hours, and a response within 24 hours. That is a defined baseline, though teams needing broader service terms should address them during a custom engagement.

Pricing

Free

The Free plan costs nothing and permits one user for individual use. It includes asset search with filters, chats with Onardo, patent-family browsing, and shared asset links. This is a useful way for a solo practitioner or inventor to explore the platform, but it does not provide the multi-user, matter-centric scope of the paid tiers.

Law Firm+, Business+, and Enterprise

Law Firm+ uses custom pricing and supports any number of users, law-firm use, matter-centric management, client access, and IPMS integration. It is the natural fit for practices that need client-facing matters and firm systems connected to patent work.

Business+ also has custom pricing and any number of users, adding AI drafting, prosecution and analysis, semantic search, analytics, and collaboration. It suits an in-house or commercial team that needs the broader analytical and creative workflow. Enterprise pricing is as per your requirements, with any number of users and bespoke solutions; it is for organizations whose deployment cannot be covered by the standard team packages. Because prices are not published for these tiers, budget comparison requires a quotation.

Platforms

Patently is available on the web. Its browser delivery keeps the same workspace accessible across supported computers, while the product's professional controls are aimed at organized team use.

Who it's for

Choose Patently if you are an attorney, inventor, or in-house patent team that wants search to lead directly into drafting, claim analysis, licensing intelligence, and shared projects. The Free plan is practical for one-person evaluation or individual work. Teams needing client access, permissions, collaboration, or integrated matter management should expect a custom-priced tier. It is less suitable for readers who only need a simple, occasional patent search.

Pros and cons

Pros

• End-to-end workflow: Search results move into drafting and analysis without exports.
• Professional analysis tools: Claim charts, ratings, patent families, clustering, alerts, and SEP analytics cover distinct research tasks.
• Controlled collaboration: Custom workflows, project permissions, ethical walls, and confidentiality barriers support separated matters.
• Defined AI safeguards: UK on-premises processing for Onardo output and zero-day Anthropic retention address sensitive-work concerns.
• Usable entry point: The free, one-user plan provides search, family browsing, Onardo chat, and link sharing at no cost.

Cons

• Free plan is individual-only: It cannot serve a shared team or matter-centric practice.
• Team pricing is opaque: Law Firm+, Business+, and Enterprise require custom terms, making upfront comparison difficult.
• Professional scope may be excessive: Casual searchers may not benefit from the wider drafting, prosecution, and project machinery.
• Support hours are bounded: Standard email support is limited to UK weekday business hours.

Alternatives

FindIP is a better fit when you want Android, iOS, API, and web access plus a free allowance of 30 search credits across five jurisdictions and all APIs. Relecura Novelty suits buyers seeking custom professional or enterprise packages with private-corpus search, integrations, and priority onboarding. Lexis+ is the paid, organization-priced choice for broader legal content and practice-area tools, with a free trial but no free plan. PatLab.AI offers a web-based free patent-search tier and a $49 one-time Pro Patent Search option. PatSnap is an alternative with API, self-hosted, and web deployment, including a limited free tier and trial. PQAI is the open-source option, with a free plan and API access. GoVeda provides a free-forever OpenPatent plan with unlimited AI semantic searches and patentability reports. Patent77 is suited to tightly capped usage, with three AI searches per month on its free plan and a $49 monthly Pro tier. For a wider category comparison, see AI Patent Search Software.

Verdict

Patently is a strong choice for patent professionals who want one web workspace spanning discovery, drafting, analysis, licensing, and controlled collaboration. Its free plan makes individual exploration straightforward, while its real organizational value sits in the custom-priced team tiers. Look elsewhere if you need transparent team pricing, mobile-native access, or only a lightweight patent-search tool.