4 Essential Elements of a Patent Application

The USPTO has established the necessary components for a patent application. Although utilities, design and interim applications have similar elements, utility applications have the most requirements. A patent application must include a full specification, drawings (if applicable), filing fee and an oath or statement.

Claims

are the most important part of a patent application as they determine the scope of the patent protection.

Anything not mentioned in this section is not protected and cannot be taken into account during any stage of processing or litigation. Patent drawings are usually black and white line drawings that illustrate what the invention is and how it works. The inventor or inventors responsible for inventing the invention must be named in the patent application. For example, if you want to patent a computer processor, the field would be “Electronic Digital Data Processing”.

If you file your patent application online, you must save your patent drawings in PDF format. The drawings should be numbered sequentially, starting with 1, up to the number of drawings included in the patent application. If you use words that are too broad, the patent examiner may ask you to change the title of your invention by removing them. This is known as the “notification function” of a patent application to alert others what not to do if they want to avoid liability for infringement.

Patents allow inventors of new machines, processes, designs and material compositions to protect their intellectual property (IP) with a patent. A summary of the disclosure is included to allow the public to quickly and easily understand the nature and type of invention disclosed in the patent application. You should compare all related patent applications by including them in the cross-reference section of your patent application. As an Orange County patent attorney, I work in Orange County, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Diego, and surrounding cities. It is important to ensure that you and any co-inventors are not required to assign your patent rights to an employer or partner.

If a claim about an invention is rejected and cancelled by the patent examiner, the remaining applications should not be renumbered but should retain their original numbering. If you choose a title for your invention that does not accurately describe it, the patent examiner may ask you to change it. The claims part of a patent application defines what the patent holder can prevent others from doing with their invention.