Add examples and use cases doc

Walkthroughs for competitive monitoring, prior art search, patent text
extraction, file wrapper downloads, family trees, PTAB tracking, bulk
data, spreadsheet exports, and AI agent workflows.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Author: smcronin

EXAMPLES.md

@@ -0,0 +1,162 @@
+# Examples & Use Cases
+
+Real-world scenarios showing what you can do with `uspto-cli`. Every example runs in a single terminal command.
+
+## See What Your Competitors Are Filing
+
+Pull every patent application filed by a company and export it to a spreadsheet:
+
+```bash
+# Export all of Google's recent filings to CSV
+uspto-cli search --assignee "Google" --filed-within 1y --download csv > google_filings.csv
+
+# See what Apple is patenting in machine learning (CPC class G06N)
+uspto-cli search --assignee "Apple" --cpc G06N --granted --limit 50
+
+# Track a specific competitor's granted patents over time
+uspto-cli search --assignee "Samsung Electronics" --granted-after 2025-01-01 --all -f csv > samsung_2025.csv
+```
+
+## Find Prior Art
+
+Search by technology area, keywords, and classification codes to find relevant prior art before filing:
+
+```bash
+# Search by title keywords
+uspto-cli search --title "solid state battery electrolyte" --granted --limit 20
+
+# Narrow by CPC classification
+uspto-cli search --cpc H01M10/0562 --filed-within 3y --all
+
+# Search by inventor name across all their filings
+uspto-cli search --inventor "Goodenough" --sort filingDate:desc
+```
+
+## Read the Actual Patent Text
+
+Extract claims, abstracts, and full specifications from granted patents — no PDF scraping needed:
+
+```bash
+# Get the claims of a specific patent
+uspto-cli app claims 16123456
+
+# Get everything: abstract, claims, citations, full description
+uspto-cli app fulltext 16123456
+
+# Just the prior art citations (patent and non-patent references)
+uspto-cli app citations 16123456
+```
+
+## Download Every Document in a Patent's File History
+
+Get all the PDFs — office actions, responses, drawings, everything the USPTO has on file:
+
+```bash
+# Download the entire file wrapper (all PDFs)
+uspto-cli app download-all 16123456
+
+# Or just see what documents are available first
+uspto-cli app docs 16123456
+
+# Download a specific document by index
+uspto-cli app download 16123456 3
+```
+
+## Trace a Patent Family Tree
+
+Follow the chain of continuations, divisionals, and continuations-in-part to see how a patent family evolved:
+
+```bash
+# Build the family tree (follows parent/child chains)
+uspto-cli family 16123456 --depth 3
+
+# Get the continuity data for a single application
+uspto-cli app continuity 16123456
+```
+
+## Due Diligence: Get Everything on a Patent
+
+One command pulls together metadata, prosecution history, assignments, continuity, and documents:
+
+```bash
+# Full application summary (makes 5 API calls, returns unified view)
+uspto-cli summary 16123456
+
+# Who owns it? Check assignment/transfer history
+uspto-cli app assignments 16123456
+
+# What happened during prosecution?
+uspto-cli app transactions 16123456
+```
+
+## Monitor PTAB Proceedings
+
+Track inter partes reviews (IPRs), post-grant reviews, and other Patent Trial and Appeal Board activity:
+
+```bash
+# Find all IPR proceedings against a specific patent
+uspto-cli ptab search --type IPR --patent 9876543
+
+# Get details on a specific proceeding
+uspto-cli ptab get IPR2023-00001
+
+# Download all IPR decisions to a file
+uspto-cli ptab decisions --download csv > ipr_decisions.csv
+
+# Check appeal decisions
+uspto-cli ptab appeals "artificial intelligence"
+```
+
+## Download Bulk Patent Data
+
+The USPTO publishes weekly data dumps of patent grants, applications, and more:
+
+```bash
+# See what bulk data products are available
+uspto-cli bulk search "patent grant"
+
+# List files in a specific product
+uspto-cli bulk files PTGRXML
+
+# Download a specific weekly file
+uspto-cli bulk download PTGRXML ipg260101.zip -o ./data/
+```
+
+## Export Data for Spreadsheets and Dashboards
+
+Every command can output to CSV for Excel, Google Sheets, or any data tool:
+
+```bash
+# CSV export for spreadsheet analysis
+uspto-cli search --assignee "Tesla" --all -f csv > tesla_portfolio.csv
+
+# Get filing counts by technology area
+uspto-cli search --assignee "Microsoft" --facets cpcSectionLabelName -f json
+
+# Export PTAB proceedings
+uspto-cli ptab search --type IPR --all -f csv > all_iprs.csv
+```
+
+## Let Your AI Agent Do Patent Research
+
+The CLI is designed for AI agents. Any agent that can run terminal commands can use it — Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Claw, Goose, or any custom agent:
+
+```bash
+# Agents get structured output with metadata
+uspto-cli search --title "LLM training" -f json --minify --quiet
+
+# Dry-run mode shows the API call without executing (useful for agent planning)
+uspto-cli search --assignee "OpenAI" --dry-run
+
+# Exit codes tell agents exactly what happened
+# 0=success, 2=bad input, 3=auth error, 4=not found, 5=rate limited
+```
+
+Agents can chain commands together to build complex research workflows — search for patents, pull the full text, trace the family tree, check for PTAB challenges, and export everything to structured data.
+
+## Getting Started
+
+1. Get a free API key at [data.uspto.gov](https://data.uspto.gov/apis/getting-started) (requires one-time ID verification)
+2. Install: `go install github.com/smcronin/uspto-cli@latest` or grab a binary from [releases](https://github.com/smcronin/uspto-cli/releases)
+3. Set your key: `export USPTO_API_KEY=your-key-here`
+4. Start searching: `uspto-cli search --title "your technology" --limit 5`

README.md

@@ -214,6 +214,10 @@ All commands support four output formats via `-f`:
 uspto-cli search --title sensor -f json --minify -q
 ```
 
+## Examples & Use Cases
+
+See **[EXAMPLES.md](EXAMPLES.md)** for detailed walkthroughs: competitive monitoring, prior art search, patent family trees, file wrapper downloads, PTAB tracking, bulk data exports, AI agent workflows, and more.
+
 ## Agent-Friendly Design
 
 Built for AI agents and automation: