Posts Tagged: "patent application"

Getting help from a trained patent professional is the best and safest way to proceed. If you do not have the funds available to seek competent professional advice you should really ask yourself whether you should be pursuing the patent path. We all have dreams, and sometimes we take risks, but the invention to patent to commercial success path can be long, time consuming and expensive. I dream big myself, so I am not about to tell others not to follow their dreams and believe in themselves and their inventions, but it is best to go into the process understanding what lies ahead and pursue moving forward in a financially responsible way.

According to the patent application filed by Walmart, the system will utilize a series of docking stations, sensors, motors and cameras to offer consumers the ability to “hail” a shopping cart using an app on their smartphones, much like they would a taxi or Uber and that upon completion of use, the system will somehow be able to recognize abandoned carts within the store or in the parking lot and will be able to manually return itself to a docking station for use by another consumer.

In fact, many times the patentably relevant information is not described as well as largely irrelevant information about marketing strategies and likely consumer demand. Discussion of what makes an improvement better, stronger and faster should take precedent and inventors should consider adding more of this type of information than they are generally accustomed to doing. Keep the puffing for the sales department, the market and consumer demand for your business plan and spend your time in a patent application describing what makes your invention unique from both a structural and functional standpoint.

While much of the specification focuses on a scheme involving patient-identifying information, the Court held that a specification’s focus cannot be limited on one particular embodiment where it expressly contemplates other embodiments or purposes. The specification clearly disclosed that sorting and storage could be done in a number of ways, not only by patient-identifying information. The Court held that the district court erred when it determined that the specification limited the invention to storing prescription containers based on patient name and slot availability. Thus, the Court reversed the grant of summary judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings.

The first thing to say is this: there is no such thing as a provisional patent. You can, however, file what is known as a provisional patent application. A provisional patent application will never itself mature into an issued patent, but in the right circumstance (and done properly) a provisional patent application can be a very useful tool for inventors. This is particularly true now that the United States is a first to file country, which absolutely must be interpreted as inventors needing to file first before disclosing anything about the invention, offering it for sale or using the invention publicly.

One big problem independent inventors face when they choose to represent themselves is with respect to the very real problem of admissions. Truthfully, those who are representing themselves should be given patent-style Miranda warnings before they file a patent application or say anything during the prosecution of a pending patent application… Another problem is with respect to not wanting their patent applications to be “too specific” and, therefore, keeping everything very general. If you are afraid to be specific in a patent application you really shouldn’t be seeking a patent in the first place.

Method or process claims are relatively easy to write once you know what the core invention is and what is necessary to be included in the claim in order to overcome the prior art. Method or process claims will include active steps to achieve a certain result. In method claims the transition is typically either “comprising” or “comprising the steps of.” While legally there may be some distinction between these two different transitions, both are acceptable. It is also important to understand that each of the steps in a method or process claims use gerunds, which are a form of a verb that ends in “ing” and operates to direct the action that is to take place.

The examination you receive from the patent examiner is never going to be any better than the patent claims you provide. If you provide preposterously broad patent claims and then add very few and perhaps common features to that preposterously broad claim in your dependent claims you are making it easy for the patent examiner to reject the preposterously broad claim and then also reject your barely narrowing dependent claims. Worse, you are left with absolutely no useful information about what the patent examiner thinks might be patentable. You are not in a meaningful position to know what prior art exists that the examiner will later throw at you, and you hardly have any useful basis to talk to the patent examiner.

U.S. patent law requires a patent applicant to furnish at least one patent drawing (sometimes referred to as a patent illustration) of the invention whenever the invention is capable of illustration by way of a drawing. Said another way, whenever a drawing would assist in the understanding of an invention patent drawings, or at least one patent drawing, is necessary.…

Many inventors boast that they did not understand their patent application because their attorney used “legalese.” Some even joke that it was so dense that they did not even know if their invention was in there. Make no mistake about it: a good patent is easy to read. Patents are business documents that are read and understood by real people, not attorneys. When the patent is litigated, the patent is read by a judge and jury, who are common, ordinary people. If a normal person cannot understand the patent, neither can they.

Preparing and filing patent applications in the United States can be a daunting undertaking. Indeed, the cost of preparing and filing a patent application can be quite high; far higher than most inventors and small businesses would prefer. Sure, there are the bargain basement discount providers on the Internet, but does anyone really think that in an industry that has only time to sell by the hour or by the project that the same quality will be obtained if you pay $1,500 for a nonprovisional patent application instead of $15,000? Unfortunately, there are some novice inventors who delude themselves into thinking they will get the same quality for $1,500, but sophisticated inventors, knowledgeable corporations, and even newbies who have their wits about them all know that the more time you spend on a patent application the better.

The PathWays system is designed to help applicants predict which art units an application is likely to be filed before the application is even filed. A unique semantic search algorithm compares user submitted text to weighted key words derived from an exhaustive collection of application documents clustered in each USPTO art unit.

The challenge when you are filing a patent application is you don’t know if the invention will become the next billion dollar drug. As you can imagine, if a patent which is relying on a provisional patent application does serve as the basis for a successful product, the provisional application will then be closely reviewed. In other words if you a claiming priority to the provisional patent application and the the provisional was submitted without much due diligence then you are in a bit of trouble!

Being your own lexicographer means is that you who can define your invention using whatever terms you choose, and after attributing pretty much whatever meaning you want to give to the terms you use. Indeed you get to define the terms you use so long as any special meaning you assign to any particular term is clearly set forth in the specification. It is true that the ordinary plain meaning of the terms as would be understood by one of skill in the relevant technology field will be applied if you do not provide your own definitions, but leaving nothing to chance is generally a good idea. It is an absolute prerequisite if you are using a term that has multiple possible meanings, or if you are referring only to a certain subset of what the term generally means or could mean.

Patent attorneys darn near need to be magicians when it comes to language, which is the primary tool of our craft. Picking the right word and the right way to say things is critical. Even more critical, perhaps, is not saying the wrong thing, or worse yet saying something that is clear but not what you intended. Today I thought…