Sunday, May 18, 2014

Filing a patent: not as easy as you think!

There are many difficulties associated with filing a patent that people do not know about. In this post, I will talk about a few of those difficulties and will address how one should go about the process of filing a patent so as to avoid many of these problems.

The first issue encountered in the process of filing patents is that it is extremely arcane and hard to understand, and as such, many people struggle to do it on their own. For this reason, this article, and many others like it, recommend that you do not attempt to go through this process on your own, and that you should definitely consult a patent attorney for help. Unfortunately, it is extremely easy for an inventor filing a patent for himself to make costly mistakes that cost him or her time and money. This is invaluable in the patent filing process because that time can make the difference between someone else filing a patent application for your invention and you getting that intellectual property protection.

The next issue is a monetary one. As unfortunate as it is to admit, the patent filing process requires a lot of time, money and freedom that one can invest to acquire a patent. Without these resources, there are high barriers to entry in the intellectual property process, which is one of the biggest downfalls of the current system. In fact, there have even been several court cases that have acknowledged the difficulties involved in the process. Chief Justice Earl Warren once famously wrote, "Such conduct inevitably requires the practitioner to consider and advise his clients as to the patentability of their inventions under the statutory criteria, 35 U. S. C. 101-103, 161, 171, as well as to consider the advisability of relying upon alternative forms of protection which may be available under state law. It also involves his participation in the drafting of the specification and claims of the patent application, 35 U. S. C. 112, which this Court long ago noted “constitute[s] one of the most difficult legal instruments to draw with accuracy,” Topliff v. Topliff, 145 U.S. 156, 171."

The importance of filing a patent application with a huge degree of care and meticulousness cannot be understated.

Source: http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2014/05/17/patent-drafting-not-as-easy-as-you-think/id=49638/

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