Claude IP-Legal Plugin
Run Anthropic's ip-legal plugin: 11 skills covering trademark clearance, cease-and-desist, DMCA takedowns, freedom-to-operate triage, invention intake, infringement triage, IP clause review, OSS compliance, and portfolio tracking. Does not draft patent claims. 8 lessons + certificate.
Anthropic shipped an IP counsel plugin on May 12, 2026 — and it explicitly does NOT draft patent claims
The ip-legal plugin covers IP practice across trademark, copyright, patent (excluding claim drafting), trade secret, and open source. 11 substantive skills + 1 scheduled agent (ip-renewal-watcher, weekly).
The explicit boundary: patent claim drafting is specialist work that needs a patent attorney or patent agent. The plugin doesn’t try to do it. Patent work in the plugin is limited to FTO triage (is this product blocked by someone else’s patent?), invention-intake first-pass screening (novelty / obviousness / §101 / bar dates / detectability / strategic value — not claim language), IP clause review in agreements, portfolio renewal tracking, and infringement triage.
Within those bounds, the plugin covers high-volume IP work: trademark clearance (knockout + Polaroid likelihood-of-confusion analysis), cease-and-desist letters (send + triage inbound + counter-notice via takedown), DMCA takedowns (bi-directional), IP clause review in MSAs / SOWs / licenses / contractor agreements, OSS license compliance checks (copyleft obligations, attribution, compatibility), and portfolio tracking (registrations + renewals + maintenance + affidavits).
This course walks the 11 skills: cold-start-interview, cease-desist, takedown, clearance, fto-triage, invention-intake, infringement-triage, ip-clause-review, oss-review, portfolio, matter-workspace — plus the ip-renewal-watcher scheduled agent. You’ll learn Lanham Act §32 (infringement) + §43(a) (false designation), DMCA §512 (takedown safe harbors), 35 USC §101 (patentable subject matter), §102 (novelty + bar dates), §103 (obviousness), §112 (enablement), the Polaroid (2d Cir.) and Sleekcraft (9th Cir.) factor tests for likelihood of confusion, OSS license compliance (GPL/LGPL copyleft, MIT/Apache/BSD permissive), and the trade secret framework (DTSA + state UTSA).
You’ll come out with a CLAUDE.md profile at ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/ip-legal/CLAUDE.md, sample TM clearance + cease-desist walkthrough, portfolio register configured, and a credential (IPL-XXXXXX) documenting the work. The plugin costs nothing beyond your Claude Pro subscription. The operating discipline this course teaches is the difference between AI that helps with IP work and AI you’d actually deploy on an enforcement decision.
What You'll Learn
- Install and cold-start the ip-legal plugin with practice area mix, portfolio, brand guidelines, C&D template, and OSS policy
- Run trademark `clearance` (knockout + Polaroid/Sleekcraft likelihood of confusion analysis)
- Operate `cease-desist` and `takedown` bi-directionally (send + respond + counter-notice)
- Apply `fto-triage` and `invention-intake` for patent-side work (excluding claim drafting)
- Manage portfolio renewals via `portfolio` and the `ip-renewal-watcher` weekly agent; run OSS compliance via `oss-review`
After This Course, You Can
What You'll Build
Course Syllabus
Prerequisites
- Active IP counsel, IP paralegal, brand protection, or law firm IP associate role
- Recommended: The Hallucination Defense Playbook (HDP) for verification rail
- Claude Cowork or Claude Code installed; ability to install plugins from the Anthropic marketplace
Who Is This For?
- In-house IP counsel
- IP paralegals / specialists
- Brand protection managers
- Trademark + copyright prosecutors
- Law firm IP associates handling clearance + FTO + clause review
- Legal ops managing IP portfolios
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this plugin draft patent claims?
No. Per the README: 'This plugin does not draft patent claims. Patent prosecution with claim strategy is a specialist craft that needs a patent agent or patent attorney and should not be outsourced to a generalist tool.' Patent work in this plugin is limited to FTO triage, IP clause review, portfolio renewal tracking, and infringement triage. Use a specialist patent tool (or an attorney) for claim drafting.
How does the cold-start handle practice area mix?
The interview asks which IP areas you actually work in (TM, patent, copyright, trade secret, OSS, or all). Plugin skips questions in areas you don't practice. Config holds multiple areas in parallel. Each skill asks which area applies when not obvious.
What's the 'enforcement posture' the plugin asks about during cold-start?
Posture is your firm's approach to sending assertion letters — aggressive, measured, or conservative. This flips defaults of cease-desist, takedown, and infringement-triage skills. Aggressive firms send earlier, draft more demanding language; conservative firms wait, draft softer first letters, escalate slowly.
Can the plugin run actual database searches for trademark clearance?
First-pass searches via the model + connected research tools (Solve Intelligence, CourtListener, Descrybe). Full USPTO TSDR-based comprehensive searches and watch services still require specialized tools (Compumark, Markify). The clearance skill produces an attorney-ready first pass; the attorney decides whether to commission the comprehensive search.
How does this work with other practice-area plugins?
IP-legal pairs with: Commercial-Legal (IP clauses in commercial contracts), Litigation-Legal (IP litigation), Corporate-Legal (M&A IP diligence), Privacy-Legal (privacy intersects with brand/trade secret protection), HDP for verification rail.
