The relevance of the topic of the article is due to the need to intensify innovation at domestic industrial enterprises to ensure accelerated technological sovereignty. The article presents the justification for the need to develop a university service to automate the process of generating a patent application, as an important component of inventive activity. The analysis of existing foreign software products for the formation and verification of applications showed that they cannot be used in domestic universities to obtain Russian patents. A step-by-step algorithm for the process of filing an application for a patent is formulated and an assessment is made of the possibilities of its automation using the service. For the possibility of developing a service to automate the process of generating applications, a description of its main functions is given (the presence of a line of application element templates; filling out a patent application form; assistance in compiling a description of an invention or utility model; support for multi-user work; integration with other systems; tracking the status of an application for grant of a patent, etc.). In addition, the qualification requirements for the service development team are structured in the form of the necessary knowledge, skills and practical experience. The main advantages of using the service for university students and other novice inventors are determined. © The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).