The Realities of Working with the United States Patent Office On Your Own

Although individual inventors are permitted by law to attempt to work directly with the United States Patent Office and seek their own patents and trademarks – it are highly recommended that they use the services of a registered patent attorney to do so. In fact this advice comes directly from the Patent Office! The reasons for this are at least twofold:

1. There are thousands of pages of rules regarding procedures for handling patent and trademarkapplications in the United States Patent and Trademark Office. This makes it extremely difficult for an individual to “follow all the rules”, and avoid troubleduring the patent process. In many cases, when you break a rule, the Patent Office will tell you, and give you the chance to “fix it”.
Unfortunately, when you break certain rules, they will not be forgiven and it will result in abandonment of your patent application!
Accordingly, working with a patent attorney or agent will help you hurdle the mountain of Patent Office rules standing between you and your patent or trademark.

2. A patent is only as good as it is well written. Even if you can get your application through the Patent Office, there is no guarantee that your patent will be written to prevent others from trespassing on your idea. The limits of the idea that is covered by a patent are the “claims”. Well written patent claims are not only essential to the enforceability of a patent, but requires years of experience.

Unfortunately, inventors typically do a poor job drafting patent claims when they attempt to write a patent application for their own invention. Because of the complex rules regarding claim drafting, an inventor may ask the Patent Examiner (an employee of the Patent Office charged with reviewing patent applications) for help. Accordingly, when the Examiner is confronted by an individual handling his/her own patent application, they will draft a single patent claim.

Unfortunately, the patent claim they draft is typically one that does not violate any patent claim drafting rules, yet is not written with protection in mind. As a result, the claim written by the Examiner often does not provide the inventor with much protection, and might require others copy the invention EXACTLY in order to infringe (violate) the patent! To sum it up, even if an individual is successful in drafting and prosecuting a patent application in the United States Patent Office by himself/herself, it is quite likely that the patent ultimately receive will have little value. An experienced patent attorney or agent will consider how others might attempt to copy the invention although changing certain details, and will write patent claims that prevent others from “designing around” the patent.