Patent Drafting and Claim Writing
Data Driven Patents
Updated April 2021. The patent system requires that we look ahead and guess the future. If we are right, there is a huge reward. This process can be powerfully addictive, as it is the same psychology as lottery tickets. Patents are bets that the marketplace will adopt a technology. The interesting characteristic is that the…
Read MoreUSPTO’s Track One vs Patent Prosecution Highway
Updated April 2020 Why the USPTO’s Track One is the mark of a lazy patent attorney. If your patent attorney is suggesting “Track One” to expedite your patent case – be wary. It is a trap. I would go so far as to say that Track One is the mark of a lazy patent attorney.…
Read MoreWhat Does A Quality Patent Look Like?
What does a quality patent look like? We evaluate patents every day. We underwrite investments in intellectual property, either for financing patents before they are written or for providing loans against patents that already exist. After doing this for a long time, there are certain elements that we evaluate every time we pick up a…
Read MoreInvestment Grade Patents Start with a Solid Foundation
An investment-grade patent starts with a solid foundation. Most patents are worthless, and getting a good patent is less about finding the gem as much as removing the dirt so that there are more possible gems in the portfolio. We do not know which patent will ultimately be gem, but we can dramatically increase our…
Read MoreHow to Make Your Patent Strong Against Inter Partes Reexam
Strengthen your patent against Inter Partes Reexam One of the easiest ways for infringers to challenge an issued patent is through the Inter Partes Reexam process, commonly known as IPR. To successfully challenge a patent, someone has to produce a prior art document that would have changed the examiner’s mind. This is known as raising…
Read MoreOver-broad Patents Are No Longer A Good Thing
It used to be that “broad” patents were the best things for litigation. That is no longer the case. A patent drafting theory from 10 years ago was to draft a patent with the loosest language possible and go for claims that are nebulous. This drafting theory results in extremely broad descriptions of an invention…
Read MoreWorthless Patents – How to Avoid the Biggest Pitfalls
Worthless patents: they don’t have to be that way. Worthless patents happen for two reasons: the original invention was not selected properly and the patent was poorly prosecuted with the patent examiner. Properly selecting the invention is crucial for getting a good patent. Your conventional patent attorney will tell you if there is prior art,…
Read MoreHow to Review a Patent Application
How can you mess up reviewing a patent application? It’s a lot easier than you think. Some comments made by an inventor, even the most innocuous comments, can be misconstrued if a patent ever was litigated. Rather than create a messy trail of documented comments remember the most important rule: Good news by mail, bad…
Read MorePatents that “Hide the Ball”
I had a telephone interview with a patent examiner the other week and in the course of the interview, the examiner said that he really liked my patent application because I did not try to hide the ball with the invention. I was originally taught to write patent applications by obfuscating the invention. Specifications are…
Read MoreBlueIron’s Patent Rating Checklist
A Patent Checklist to find out: How good is your invention? The spreadsheet contains many of the parameters discussed in BlueIron’s blog posts on patent due diligence.Please let us know if you have any suggestions/comments to make the checklist a better tool.
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