The quality of a patent has a huge impact on the value of a patent. The lower the quality, the less value the patent it has down to the point where it’s valueless. The quality of a patent (“patent quality”) is a big topic with many facets, which I’ll address in other articles.
For this article, I want to provide some practical tips on how to gauge the quality of your patent application. You’ll want to do this before your application is filed, not after. You have many more options to fix poor quality before you file your patent application, including finding new patent counsel.
Tip 1: You should be able to read through the patent application once and get a good understanding of the invention and how it works. This is true of any well written patent application. If you struggle to understand the invention and/or how it works, that’s a significant quality issue.
Tip 2: The read of the patent application should flow, like reading a story. It should not bounce you back and forth between figures. The detailed description should start with Figure 1 and process linearly through the figures. Again, this is true of any well-written patent application.
Tip 3: Draw a picture of the independent claims; at least of claim 1. If claim 1 is regarding software, draw a flow chart and/or state diagram. The drawing should be fairly easy to create. The elements of the claim should clearly connect and the resulting figure should make logical and technical since. If your drawing has elements that don’t connect to anything, that’s a problem. If your drawing doesn’t make logical and technical sense, that’s a big problem.
As a rule of thumb, I can create a drawing of a well written independent claim in about twenty minutes. The more poorly the claim is written, the long it takes. For some patent applications, I’ve spent days trying to decipher the claims.
Ultimately, patent quality is about the skill, knowledge, and writing ability of the patent attorney. If your patent application does not fare well with tips 1, 2, and/or 3, I suggest you challenge your patent attorney to do a better job or to find new patent counsel before you file your patent application.
**Please note that this article is not legal advice; it is not a legal opinion; nor should you rely on it as legal advice or as a legal opinion. This article merely expresses the author’s general thoughts on a topic regarding the business of patents. Nothing in this article establishes any form of an attorney-client relationship between you, the reader, and the author of this article.
