---
name: prior-art-record
description: Use this skill when the user wants a public disclosure (a technical note, page, paper, or document the company has published) written up as a Prior Art Record, so an examiner or a challenger can find it and prove when it went public. Inputs include the disclosure's address or file, any archive captures, and the team's notes on who wrote it and when. The skill states what the disclosure teaches in a claim's words, records the first public date and the source of each date, flags dates only the publisher controls, checks access and specificity, proposes classification codes for an attorney to confirm, and lists what would make the record stronger. Triggers on requests like "write a prior art record," "can we prove when this went public," "is this note usable as prior art," "date this disclosure," or "what does our old technical note prove."
---

# Prior Art Record
This skill is Labor as Code™ for the Prior Art Record in *Discoverability
Engineering*. Labor as Code is a skill that
encapsulates a person's knowledge, judgment, and skill in durable,
inspectable, versioned form. The know-how is an operator's habit of
asking of every published note, "Could a stranger find this, and could
they prove the date?" and of writing the answer where the next person can
read it.

The method comes from "Patents and Prior Art Are Public Evidence That
Needs a Date Anyone Can Prove," with the record's fields defined there
and its evidence rows in `editorial-notes.md` ledger D. Read the chapter
for the argument and for Merriden's 2021 note, which this skill
generalizes into a repeatable pass over the user's own disclosures. It
does not retell the case.

This skill records and grades a disclosure. It does not give a legal
opinion on whether the disclosure is prior art against any patent, it
does not decide whether to publish anything, and it never invents a
date, an author, a capture, or a classification code. A gap is a
finding, and the skill reports it as one. The person who owns the
disclosure and the patent attorney decide what the record means.

## Before running

Confirm these points with the user before the first field:

1. **Which disclosure, and why it matters.** Get the address or the
   file itself. Ask whether the record is for a disclosure the company
   already published or one it is about to publish. A record for an
   unpublished item is a plan, and the skill marks it PLANNED.
2. **What the user can show about the date.** Ask for archive captures,
   repository deposits, version histories, and any dated emails or
   posts. Use only what the user supplies or what the skill can open.
3. **Who decides.** Name the operator who owns the record and the
   attorney who reads the classification codes. If the company has no
   attorney, say so in the record.

## Step 1: State what the disclosure teaches

1. Read the whole disclosure once before writing anything.
2. Write one sentence saying what it teaches, in the words a patent
   claim would use: the method, its steps, what it acts on, and the
   result. Do not use the disclosure's own marketing words.
3. Quote the passages that give the setup, the steps, and the values a
   reader needs to repeat the method. If there are none, write
   `enabling: NO` and name what is missing. A line that names a method
   without saying how to do it teaches nothing an examiner can cite.

## Step 2: Record where it is published and who can reach it

For each address:

1. Record the address and the date the skill opened it.
2. Record `access`: public with no login and no notice, needs an
   account, or carries a confidentiality notice. Test it with an
   unauthenticated request. Do not rely on the user's browser session.
3. Record whether an ordinary link from the company's own site reaches
   it. A page with no incoming link is harder to find.
4. Note whether the file is text a machine can read. A scanned image
   fails.

## Step 3: Date it with evidence the publisher does not control

1. Record `first_public` only from a source. Write UNKNOWN where none
   exists.
2. For each date, record its source and who controls it: a third-party
   archive capture, a repository or service that sets its own deposit
   date, a dated proceedings or journal record, or the page's own date
   line.
3. List every date that only the publisher controls under `untrusted`.
   A page's own "last updated" line, and any page edited in place, goes
   there.
4. Check the archive's capture history for the address and quote the
   earliest capture with its date. Do not assume a capture exists.
5. Never edit the page that carries the original date. If a better
   version is needed, the record lists it as a second entry with its own
   date and a link back to the original.

## Step 4: Propose classification codes

1. Propose the Cooperative Patent Classification symbols that fit the
   teaching, from the scheme's own titles, and record the scheme version
   beside each symbol.
2. Mark every symbol PROPOSED. If no symbol fits the teaching well, say
   so and mark the class OPEN for the attorney.
3. Do not name a symbol for a standard the scheme does not name.

## Step 5: Write the record and conclude

Write the record in `specs/disclosure/prior-art-records.yaml`:

```
- id: par-NNN
  teaches: ____
  published: [url, first_public, date_proof, untrusted, status]
  access: ____
  enabling: ____
  cpc: [____]   # scheme version; OPEN if unsure
  cited_against: ____
  owner: ____
  reviewed: ____
```

Then conclude in plain words, with reasons:

1. **Where the disclosure stands** on the five stages (found,
   understood, trusted, qualified as art, acted on), one sentence each,
   citing the field that decides it.
2. **The weakest stage and the smallest fix** for it: a dated new
   version that links to the original, an archive capture request, a
   repository deposit, or a claim-shaped title.
3. **What only a person can settle:** the classification codes, whether
   any part of the disclosure is export-controlled, and whether to
   publish a new version.

Where the evidence for a date is thin, say so plainly and name what
would resolve it. Do not pick a date to sound useful.

## What this skill does not do

- It does not decide that a disclosure is prior art against a patent.
- It does not publish, edit, or delete any page.
- It does not request an archive capture or make a deposit without the
  user's approval of the exact address.