Practical Tips for Patent Drafting

How 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…

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Patents 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…

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BlueIron’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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Writing Your Own Patent

Writing your own patent? Do a business plan first. Some inventors write their own patent applications. This can be a very valuable exercise because forcing yourself to put the invention down on paper can help you better understand the invention, as well as think through new versions of the invention. In many cases, these pro…

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Actor Analysis for Patent Infringement

Due Diligence for Patents – Actor Analysis tells who is the likely infringer. Actor analysis is often overlooked when valuing inventions for patenting, or for valuing patents once they are issued. With actor analysis, we want to know who is the actual actor that infringes the invention. This analysis often identifies patents that you would…

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A good patent is easy to read

A good patent is easy to read. If you can’t understand your patent application, neither can the patent examiner. Many people tell me 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…

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What does a good patent application look like?

Good patents are NOT written in “legalese”. I had a telephone interview with a patent examiner a while ago 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…

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