Ongoing patent strategy, continuous invention discovery, and prior-art-searched filings for a flat monthly fee. Built for funded AI and software companies that are too early for in-house counsel and too important to protect ad hoc.
The typical pattern: ignore IP for two years, then scramble to file something the week before a fundraise. We replace that with a pipeline that runs continuously, so protectable work is caught when it happens, not remembered later.
Secure, enterprise-grade tooling connects to the systems your engineers already use and surfaces potentially protectable work as it happens, then turns strong candidates into structured invention disclosures ready for attorney review.
Each candidate is scored against a standard rubric: novelty, eligibility, detectability, strategic fit, and continuation runway. You get a one-page scorecard and a clear recommendation.
Prior art review informs every filing, so claims are drafted with the landscape in view. Provisionals are written to hold up when priority matters, not to check a box.
Quarterly family reviews, continuation strategy before windows close, competitor monitoring, and docketing oversight. No family goes abandoned without a documented decision.
A standing strategy meeting plus a dedicated Slack channel with a defined response window. Ask before you sign, ship, or publish.
Continuous discovery from your engineering stack, with every candidate evaluated through our standard gate and logged.
Prior-art-searched, attorney-drafted provisional applications filed on a steady cadence as part of your plan.
Quarterly review of every open family: claim runway, competitor product movement, and keep-alive recommendations before issuance closes the window.
A monthly briefing on newly published applications and grants in your technology space, including named players, and what the activity means for your roadmap.
Periodic ranking of your assets by detectability and evidence of use, with a concrete path to making core assets assertable.
We watch your deadlines, maintenance fees, and application status across the portfolio and flag everything before it's urgent.
An annual portfolio letter from outside patent counsel, written to be forwarded to your board and dropped into a fundraising data room.
Both plans are month to month after an initial term. Scope is set out in a clear, readable engagement letter before anything starts.
Filing cadence and scope are defined in your engagement letter. USPTO fees, drawings, and third-party costs are billed at cost. Complex matters and non-provisional applications are quoted separately at preferred rates. Need more? Fractional chief patent counsel engagements are available by conversation.
Fortune 500 IP departments run six-figure software stacks for invention discovery, prior art analysis, claim charting, and examiner analytics. Startups can't justify that spend, and traditional firms don't pass the leverage along. Here, enterprise-grade tooling is built into every plan, working alongside counsel, without the $600-an-hour meter attached.
Fractional Patent Counsel is led by a USPTO-registered patent attorney with a career spent on complex software systems: AI and machine learning, autonomous agents, distributed systems, and cryptographic infrastructure.
That experience is hands-on, not just on paper: it includes building and shipping production AI systems, from an AI agent marketplace to an MCP-based verification protocol. When your engineers describe an architecture, nothing gets lost in translation, and that fluency shows up in claim quality, faster disclosures, and strategy that matches how AI products actually get built.
Hourly billing punishes you for asking questions, which is exactly backwards for early companies. A flat fee means you loop counsel in before decisions get made, and it means our incentive is to build systems that protect you efficiently rather than to bill more hours.
Every provisional in the filing program includes prior art review, so drafting proceeds with the landscape in view. Applications are attorney-drafted with real claims strategy behind them, written to support a later non-provisional and to hold up if priority is ever challenged. Cadence and scope are set in your engagement letter.
We run conflict checks before every engagement and decline work that overlaps an existing client's space. If your technology later converges with another client's, we tell you early and help you transition that matter to trusted counsel rather than pretending the issue away.
Your disclosures, scorecards, evaluations, and files are yours. Plans are month to month after the initial term, and off-boarding includes a complete handoff package your next counsel can pick up without missing a deadline.
Sometimes. More often we act as your day-to-day patent function and coordinate specialists, including your existing firm, where they add value. Many clients keep litigation or corporate counsel elsewhere and run patent strategy through us.
An intro call covers where your IP stands today, what's protectable on your roadmap, and whether a fractional model fits. No pitch deck, no obligation.
Prefer email? hello@fractionalpatentcounsel.com