How Not to Write a Patent

Patents can be thought as a “bundle of rights.” An issued patent carries with it a number of exclusive rights, each of which can be divided up individually from the others – removed from the bundle like one of many…
Continuing the series of posts explaining the parts of a patent, today we move on the drawings. A drawing is required when it is necessary to understand the patent application. Most patent applications have drawings because drawings of the invention…
Patent applications typically take quite a while to become actual patents. It’s currently taking between 2 and 4 years just to get the First Office Action from the Patent Office. There are a few ways to speed up the examination…
The Patent Office is relatively generous when it comes to tolerating accidents in patent applications and patents. Revival of a PCT application is more difficult. Patent applications can sometimes go abandoned when an applicant fails to submit a reply or…
I am pleased to have been asked to give a presentation on technical writing, patent drafting, and patent prosecution at the University of Advancing Technology in Phoenix, Arizona on Thursday, July 12, 2012. I have made the presentation slides available…
Professor Andrew Beckerman-Rodau has recently written in the Yale Journal of Law & Technology that intellectual property protection has expanded beyond its intended, or appropriate, scope. This has resulted in the lines between subject matter (and their corresponding intellectual property)…