This workflow is available once the target patent and its claims are already in your project.
Use this workflow when you need to inspect the structure of a patent's claims, correct or reorganize claim limitations, or prepare the claims for charting and claim-construction work. The goal is not just to read the claim text. It is to make sure the claims are structured in a way that supports the rest of the matter cleanly.
Start from the target patent
Open the target patent inside the project first. Claim review lives in the patent-details workflow, not as a standalone project page. If the patent has not been added to the project yet, add it before trying to review or edit claims.
This article is about reviewing and editing the claim text and limitation structure. That is different from the claim-construction workflow. Use the editing workflow when you need to change the claim tree itself. Use claim construction when you need to define disputed terms and collect evidence for those definitions.
Review the claim list before you edit
Before changing anything, read through the current claim list so you understand how the patent has been parsed. &AI presents claims in a structured view rather than as one flat block of text. That structure matters because later workflows, especially charts and claim construction, depend on the limitation tree.
As you review, look for issues such as:
a limitation that should be broken into smaller pieces
hierarchy that should be nested differently
claims that should be marked asserted or canceled
claim properties that affect later analysis, such as whether a claim is independent or method-based
If the claims already look correct, you may not need to edit them. This workflow is most valuable when the claim structure needs cleanup or more precise organization.
Open Edit Claims when the structure needs work
When editing is available for the patent, use Edit Claims from the claims area to open the tree-based editor. The edit modal is the main workspace for claim restructuring.
From there, the current workflow supports actions such as:
adding the first claim if none exist yet
adding a claim after an existing claim
adding sibling limitations
adding child limitations
deleting claims or limitations
deleting a limitation and flattening its children upward when that better matches the intended structure
indenting or outdenting limitations to change hierarchy
reordering the claim structure
editing limitation text directly
When you save, &AI renumbers the claim structure automatically. That removes a large amount of manual cleanup that would otherwise happen after every structural change.
Update claim properties while you edit
The editor is not only for tree structure. It also supports claim-level status updates that influence downstream workflows. Depending on the patent and view state, you may be able to mark claims as:
Asserted
Independent
Canceled
Method
For subject patents, these flags can matter later when you filter work, generate claim constructions, or choose which claims to emphasize in charting and analysis.
Split long limitations carefully
One of the most useful claim-editing actions is splitting a long limitation into smaller parts. This is helpful when a single parsed limitation really contains multiple ideas that you want to analyze separately.
The current workflow supports two split approaches:
Replace original, where the original limitation is replaced by the split result
Branch under original, where the original limitation remains as a parent container and the new split parts become children
That choice affects how the claim tree will read after the edit. Use Replace original when the original limitation should disappear into its parts. Use Branch under original when the original language should remain as a container for the smaller elements underneath it.
Choose how citations should be handled after a split
When you split a limitation, &AI follows with citation-management choices instead of assuming how chart citations should be redistributed. This is important because claim edits can change how existing chart citations map to the new structure.
Depending on the situation, the workflow can let you:
keep source citations on the original limitation
find new citations for the split limitations
create the new limitations without citations
ask &AI to redistribute existing citations across the split targets
If you choose a path that depends on charts, the project must already have active charts for that patent. Citation-finding and citation-redistribution flows can warn you if no charts exist yet. If that happens, create the relevant chart first and then return to claim editing.
Use optional controls when they are available
Subject patents can show a few adjacent claim-management tools alongside the main list:
Manage Groups for limitation grouping
representative claim selection when no representative claim has been chosen yet
A single limitation can belong to more than one limitation group, so use Manage Groups when the same element should stay grouped in more than one analysis context.
These controls are not a substitute for the main editor, but they can help organize how the patent is used in later project work.
Save only after the structure matches your intended analysis
Because claim edits feed charts and related analysis, it is worth reviewing the structure once more before saving. Confirm that:
each limitation is split at the level you actually want to analyze
parent-child nesting makes sense
claim-status flags are correct
any split-related citation choice matches the current charting plan
After saving, &AI updates the claims and keeps the project aligned with the revised structure.
After editing claims
From here, move into claim construction to define important terms, open charts for infringement or invalidity analysis, or return to the patent viewer to verify specification support. Cleaning up the claim structure before charting or construction usually produces better results.