Patent Attorney Creates Word Plugin for Patent Applications

Dmitry Brant, a DC patent attorney at a top patent law firm, recently launched a new software product aimed at the patent market named Patent ClaimMaster.  Patent ClaimMaster is a Microsoft Word plugin that helps you improve the quality of your patent documents while reducing costs. With Patent ClaimMaster you can turn cumbersome and time consuming tasks into simple tasks with only a simple click of the mouse. The software has a script-based engine that can check claims and specification for various errors, and the long list of features will allow you to, among many other things, quickly and easily create claim charts, compare claims to identify the differences, generate a summary of the claims renumber both independent and dependent claims, identify claim terms missing support in the specification, download patents from the USPTO and run analysis on them and much more. This tool seems to include far more features than anything else available on the market (see Comparison Chart), is easy to use and unlike so many other tools for patent attorneys, this tool was created by a patent attorney who understands what we all need and what will make our jobs easier. There is also no reason not to give it a try since you can download a full version of Patent ClaimMaster for a 14 day free trial before you buy, and the Patent ClaimMaster website has demonstration videos showing just how easy it is to perform tasks using the tool, and gives you the ability to visualize exactly how beneficial it is to use. I think if patent attorneys take a moment to look at some of the video tutorials, which are quite short, ranging from 20 seconds to about 90 seconds, you will understand exactly what a wonderful tool Dmitry has created and why it will make you more productive and your work easier.

For example, take a look at this illustrative tutorial below. This shows just how easy it is to use Patent ClaimMaster to create a patent claim chart.

This illustrative tutorial shows how you can run an analysis of an entire patent application and have a report created showing you if you are lacking support in a specification, if you have potentially ambiguous language in a claim, if you are lacking proper antecedent basis and more.

The price of Patent ClaimMaster for the benefit it provides is also hard to beat. There are three versions of Patent ClaimMaster, namely Pro, QA, and Lite. The Pro version offers all features and task automation. The QA version supports all quality assurance functions, and the Lite version includes various task automation features helpful to patent secretaries and paralegals. The price for the Pro version is $49 for a 6 month subscription or $259 for a one-time purchase. Throughout September 2009, for those choosing the one-time purchase there are substantial discounts — solo practitioners receive a 50% discount, small firms receive a 33% discount and everyone else receives a 25% discount. The website also indicates that there are substantial discounts available for those who purchase 10 or more licenses.  For more information see Buy Patent ClaimMaster.

I asked Dmitry what made him decide to create patent claim master? He told me:

I decided to write ClaimMaster because I became frustrated with various PTO correspondence being bounced from the USPTO as non-compliant for very minor issues. At that time, I also realized that a large portion of checking of patent documents is fairly mechanical and thus could be automated. When I was an engineer, I’ve worked on validation software for router configurations, so I figured: why not do the same for patent documents? So I wrote a small set of error-checking tools for myself and then shared it with some of my colleagues. I also added some automation features for speeding up common prosecution and litigation tasks. The software worked well and the response was overwhelmingly positive, so I continued to add features to ClaimMaster and eventually turned it into a commercial product.

According to Dmitry the feedback he has received from patent attorneys and industry professionals has been positive. He explained to me that he has been told that patent attorneys primarily usually use ClaimMaster to check claims and the specification for various problems, including antecedent problems, incorrect reference numbers, incorrect status indicators and more. Secretaries primarily use ClaimMaster to extract clean claim sets, generate claim charts, generate templates for OA responses, compute claim fees and other administrative functions.

Dmitry started working on Patent ClaimMaster in 2008 and it’s been commercially available since mid-2009. He drew on his software engineering training (he has a BS and M.Eng from MIT in Electrical Engineering) and experience in developing network analysis software prior to going to law school. Dmitry also worked at the USPTO for a period of time while in law school, and eventually found himself at Fish & Richardson.

Given that you can use Patent ClaimMaster free for a 14 day free trial it seems like an excellent opportunity to see if it will work for you in your practice. I personally have no doubt that patent attorneys will find it to be extremely useful, and once you use it I cannot imagine you will want to go back to life before using it. With nothing to lose it seems like a no brainer to me. Give it a try. What is the worst that could happen? You might find yourself more productive, making fewer mistake and saving time. In an era where clients are increasingly demanding cost certainty and fix fees, and patent attorneys are more and more operating on flat fee billing on a project by project base, anything you can do to make yourself more productive really needs to be considered. A tool like Patent ClaimMaster should be in your arsenal.

Share

Warning & Disclaimer: The pages, articles and comments on IPWatchdog.com do not constitute legal advice, nor do they create any attorney-client relationship. The articles published express the personal opinion and views of the author as of the time of publication and should not be attributed to the author’s employer, clients or the sponsors of IPWatchdog.com.

Join the Discussion

6 comments so far.

  • [Avatar for Dmitry]
    Dmitry
    September 22, 2009 10:39 pm

    Thanks for the kind words, Paul. I am glad you liked the software. Frankly, I am surprised by the number of positive emails I got from people. Now that I see that there is real interest and need for my software, I plan on making it even better. I have a couple of new features in store which I think will be great and hopefully I’ll roll them out within the 3-4 months. So thanks everyone for your comments and emails. Please, if you see bugs or issues or have suggestions, please let me know and I’ll try to provide you with a fix as soon as I can. You can reach me at support@patentclaimmaster.com

    -Dmitry

  • [Avatar for Gene Quinn]
    Gene Quinn
    September 22, 2009 08:27 am

    Thanks for the compliment Mr. Xaminer, but I certainly do not profess to be perfect, like so many things in life I prefer not to look at what I wrote in the past. I have taken quite a bit of heat for the claims in my original patent application. I wrote those suspecting the application would remain pending for 6 or 8 years, which was the norm. While so many have lambasted me for the claims, it was encouraging in the first office action to see only 2 references used against me, one of which I can easily get behind with a 131 affidavit, so it would seem that those claims are not so bad after all.

    Anyway, thanks for reading.

    -Gene

  • [Avatar for Mr. Xaminer]
    Mr. Xaminer
    September 21, 2009 11:44 pm

    Excellent news! Maybe Examiners will now start to receive more claims from attorneys that are actually proper (i.e. making sense, proper antecedent basis, proper spec support, grammar, etc.). Also, perhaps some of those Harvard Law attorneys in Boston (say cheese Sunstein!) could utilize the software, as they seem to be the worst when it comes to drafting a decent claim in my opinion. Helpful rule of thumb for the software: the more prestigious the law school, the greater probability the attorney will need the software. Send all Harvard Law grads a FREE copy and help reduce backlog at the PTO. The only exception is you (Gene Q.)…. you obviously know what you’re doing so you don’t NEED the software (although I’m sure you will anyway just to evaluate it).

  • [Avatar for Paul Dougherty]
    Paul Dougherty
    September 21, 2009 04:37 pm

    Gene –

    I downloaded the trial for this tool a couple weeks ago and I give it two thumbs up. I used PatentOptimizer at my previous firm which was excellent but this provides many of the same time-saving features for a fraction of the cost. It’s a no-brainer, particularly for a solo practitioner.

    Very nice tool.

    Paul

  • [Avatar for Gene Quinn]
    Gene Quinn
    September 21, 2009 11:41 am

    Logan-

    Will do. That is a great suggestion. I think the PTO could benefit greatly from this tool.

    -Gene

  • [Avatar for ~~Logan~~]
    ~~Logan~~
    September 20, 2009 07:02 pm

    Gene,

    If the program actually works as well as Mr. Brant indicates, he should market it to the PTO itself. There are many tools in it that would help examiners in the evaluation and understanding of the claims & spec.

    Specifically, applications like the claim charts, the parsing of claims & the search of the spec for support of claimed terms (even more helpful if it shows where that support can be found), for example, would save a lot of time & effort & free examiners to do the search & application of the prior art. There are probably some mods that can be added in that would make it even more useful for examination. Please pass on the suggestion to him.