Mastering The Patent Application Process

You have just completed the first draft of the plans for a unique invention. First, take a little bit of time to be proud of yourself, whether your creation is a new treatment for chronic arthritis pain or a heretofore-unconventional type of integrated circuit. Sooner rather than later, you will need to start working to protect your Intellectual Property - the first step of which, of course, will be filing a patent application.

We will not be disingenuous and tell you the patent-filing process is not somewhat complex, because it certainly is. However, "complex" is not, and has never been, a synonym for "impossible." Here, we will break down the key steps this journey requires and review some key practices for making things run more smoothly.

Assessing novelty

For the sake of this run-through, we will assume that the design or device you plan to patent is unique enough to merit a claim of IP rights. It is worthwhile to reexamine major patent databases like PATENTSCOPE - the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) repository of more than 83 million patent documents - as well as its counterparts from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), European Patent Office (EPO) and other IP regulators.

Get in touch with our patent attorneys! This time around, you are not solely checking for approved or processing patents to determine whether your idea has already been patented. You must also see if any patent claim is relatively similar to yours, i.e., close enough for the possibility of a legal dispute down the road, and note the degree of similarity between your design or device and these others. Consider it a form of rudimentary risk assessment. Dennemeyer's proprietary, AI-driven patent search software, Octimine, can be immensely useful here, as it may uncover similarities that other search tools might have missed.

To be clear, finding similar-but-not-identical devices does not mean you should throw your patent away and start again. It is a matter of being prepared for potential trouble in the future and anticipating questions your patent examiner may have about such similarities.

Provisional and formal application

Along similar lines, you can further mitigate the risk of a future dispute by filing a provisional patent application. This is helpful in any first-to-file country where it is available (such as Australia and the U.S.) if you have not finalized your invention. Keep in mind that it affords you limited protection of no more...