Posts Tagged: "Patent Drafting"

In a 2017 IPWatchdog article, I challenged practitioners engaged in patent prosecution: strive to embody the traits of an “IP counselor,” who brings a broader strategic mission and skill set than “just a patent prosecutor.” Likewise, I encouraged clients to retain IP counselors as their counsel of choice. My cautionary advice stemmed from patent prosecution’s vulnerability to complacency and commoditization, such as due to its structured nature and incentives to obtain as many patents as possible. In addition, relative to their peers, many practitioners provide relatively undifferentiated services, limiting their attractiveness to prospective clients and their staying power for existing clients.

I began my conversation with Wen Xie by giving her an open mic opportunity to share her thoughts on the state of the industry and she said: “You asked me just now before we started filming, should we be afraid of AI. And my answer is there’s no point in being afraid because it’s coming… AI is coming in every profession, every technology. And we shouldn’t resist it when it comes to patent drafting or patent prosecution.”

In patent law, claims define the scope of an invention and determine the extent of the patent protection granted. They serve as a crucial tool for patent owners to assert their rights and for competitors to understand the boundaries of those rights. Among various types of claims, inferential claims hold a significant yet often overlooked position.

Like most patent attorneys, I get multiple emails each month for artificial intelligence tools purporting to help patent attorneys draft patent applications. I have done demos, and I have no doubt that in five years almost all patent drafting practitioners will be using these generative AI tools in some capacity. But I am also convinced that these tools will not be especially helpful in drafting claims.

Writing a useful and enforceable patent application is not an easy task. A number of articles show how to draft a patent application. For example, Gene Quinn of IPWatchdog published a series of articles with tips to avoid mistakes or pitfalls. Automated software and AI-assisted drafting tools have also become available, but there have been ethical and practical concerns about relying on AI. Instead of discussing the specific details of the steps in writing a patent application or the pros and cons of automated or AI tools, I will focus on the overall strategies or approaches.

In an ideal world, issued patents would not contain errors. In reality, patent drafting is tedious and time-consuming work and perfection is not an attainable goal. The patent industry seems to be steadily getting better, though. In a recent study, we uncovered an 11.24% decrease in errors per patent over the past four years. We observed this decrease by reviewing every patent issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) since 2020 – nearly 1.4 million patents.

In Part I of this series, we discussed  the importance of identifying and avoiding patentability-blocking ambiguities in a patent application. It is equally important that the patent application drafter bring a sensibility to the drafting of the application that recognizes that conceptually the application must not  simply be seen as a document whose job is to describe an invention but must also be understood to be a document that must have a descriptive capability that enables it to distinguish patent worthy subject matter from prior art. Thus, when the patentability of patent worthy subject matter disclosed by the application is challenged, the application can speak—it is able to defend its patentability. This capability is essential in both pre and post grant forums.

On March 30, Judge Sean D. Jordan of the United States Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, issued a rather atypical Order, at least for the Eastern District of Texas. A defendant prevailed on a motion to dismiss. See Repifi Vendor Logistics, Inc. v. IntelliCentrics, Inc., Civil No. 4:20-CV-448-SDJ. Those familiar with patent litigation know that, over many years, the Eastern District of Texas has been a notoriously favorable venue for patent owners to pursue patent infringement lawsuits against alleged infringers. One of the things that has made the Eastern District of Texas so compelling from the patent owner perspective is the extraordinary reluctance of judges to rely on procedural motions to dispose of lawsuits in favor of defendants. It is no exaggeration to say that virtually everything that is filed in the Eastern District of Texas will go to trial unless it settles, which can raise the pressure on defendants to settle, sometimes for nuisance value alone.

While it has been said that the how and why of patent application drawings are usually best left to the professionals, I do think it is important for everyone – from the solo inventor to the big firm practitioner – to have a general understanding of the basics of utility application drawings. It is nice to be able to rely on an illustration service to get everything right for you; however, as the person with the name on the patent application, you are ultimately responsible for the content and form of the drawings that are submitted. This article will touch on the fundamentals of a utility drawing. While you may not be creating the drawings, it is crucial that you have an idea of what to look for in order to be compliant with U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) guidelines.

Naming the correct inventors is critical when drafting a U.S. patent. Patents must have all inventors properly named. Deciding who is an inventor is a complicated task and great care must be taken to not add or omit people who are not inventors. It is possible that failure to properly name the inventors could result in losing your patent or its value. If inventors have been improperly added or omitted, the patent must be corrected or it could be declared invalid.

Legal writing has long attracted criticism. In Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift complained of lawyers’ “peculiar cant and jargon of their own, that no other mortal can understand.” (p. 317.) More recently, Loyola Law School professor Robert Benson lamented how “[l]egalese is characterized by passive verbs, impersonality, nominalizations, long sentences, idea-stuffed sentences, difficult words, double negatives, illogical order, poor headings, and poor typeface and graphic layout.” Robert W. Benson, “The End of Legalese: The Game is Over,” 13 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 519, 531 (1984). Ouch. Patent disclosures often reveal the same warts. But if “[t]he purpose of the written description requirement is to assure that the public receives sufficient knowledge,” Zoltek Corp. v. United States, 815 F.3d 1302, 1308 (Fed. Cir. 2016), why must we suffer such side effects? Drafters guilty of these crimes must’ve forgotten the public’s right to “receive meaningful disclosure in exchange for being excluded from practicing the invention.” Enzo Biochem, Inc. v. Gen-Probe Inc., 323 F.3d 956, 970 (Fed. Cir. 2002).

I’ve recently hosted two webinars on patent classification, taking a look at how contractors for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) determine where to route each patent application within the Office after filing. One webinar dealt with classification generally and a second dealt specifically with classification relating to computer implemented inventions. These webinars were fascinating on many levels. Did you know that the old patent classification system plays an important role in determining which Art Unit is assigned an application? And you probably thought you could forget about class 705! Not so fast! A sparsely populated technical disclosure in the specification with an inartful claim set is still a recipe for characterization in class 705, which still must be avoided at all costs if possible.

As one of about 46,000 registered practitioners in the United States, most of us are unfortunately too well acquainted with Section 101, 102, and 103 rejections from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). But it may be surprising that most rejected design patent applications are not rejected under these sections. Instead, the least favorite number of the design patent practitioner is 112. While Section 112 rejections on utility applications are generally easily overcome, that is often not always the case with such rejections on design applications. Since there are only about 30,000 design applications issued each year, each of the 46,000 registered practitioners handle on average less than one design application per year! So, for those unfamiliar with the quirks of design patent practice, which is most of us, and since design patent applications have a relatively high allowance rate of 84% (see the USPTO Data Visualization Center/Design Data page, it might be tempting to rely on your patent draftsperson to prepare what they think are adequate drawings, copy the mostly boiler-plate specification language, and just file the application. But that can be a costly mistake.