![]() ![]() Literally, the patent can be invalidated because the provisional didn’t sufficiently disclose the invention. If the final patent requires info that isn’t in the provisional, it is a potentially fatal weakness just waiting to be discovered by any competitor who takes umbrage with your patent rights. Whatever is in your final issued patent must show up to some de minimis degree in the provisional. Now, once you file your provisional, you are locked-in to what you’ve described… sort of. A provisional just proves you are the first inventor (in the legal sense, as opposed to the actual sense, which is actually pretty typical for the patent application process). A provisional is known as a “priority document” and usually nobody ever looks at it. When done right, it culminates in an issued patent. A nonprovisional is a full patent application that gets a full examination. Ok- quick refresher on provisionals vs nonprovisionals. So where does that leave us? The provisional patent of course! Taking it a step further and speaking frankly, I would almost never recommend drafting a Nonprovisional Patent Application (NPA or nonprovisional for short) without the assistance of an agent or attorney. There’s a lot of talent and skill involved, and not every patent lawyer has it. I mean, be nice, but make sure the person knows what the heck they’re doing. To that end, I always encourage inventors to just grill their prospective attorney. Many lawyers don’t even know how to do it well. The time investment is so large, that almost no non-lawyers (or agents) do it. It literally takes years of dedicated study to become good at it. Claims drafting is just an insanely specialized skill that is based on a ton of case-law, learned techniques for analyzing inventions, patent prosecution strategy and tactics, intuition developed through practice, strategy for drafting with an eye toward future patent assertion and litigation, and on and on. It’s not even like it’s just a “statistically significant” difference- it has been universally true in my experience. This is based on my own experience in working with my many clients who have self-drafted. Ignoring prosecution though, pro se applicants tend to leave a lot of IP on the table, or rather, in the public domain. We can all affect our own chances of success. I personally have beaten the odds in many significant endeavors in my life, and I admire people who are willing to attempt to do the same. There are always people who beat the odds. *Don’t let anyone tell you not to try something that has a low success rate. ![]() Patent prosecution is a very tricky combination of bureaucratic maneuvering, legal argumentation, diplomacy, and knowledge of when and how to take it to the mat if necessary. OK- here’s the hard truth: self-represented, or pro se, patent applicants have very low success rates at prosecuting their own patents*. The spec is the written description of the invention designed to help people understand the invention, and the claims are the legal description of the bounds of the IP that you own, similar to a legal description of a real estate lot, if you’ve ever encountered one of those. Legally, patents need a specification, claim(s), and drawing(s). I just love to see that effort by the inventor.Īt this point, we review the three main parts of a patent (for reasons that will make sense in a second). I’ve seen a lot of commercially successful inventions, and every single one of them required tons of work along the way. Finally and by far most significant, is that when an inventor undertakes to draft their own Provisional Patent Application (PPA or provisional for short), it demonstrates that they’re willing to put in work. Usually it’s a marginal difference, but sometimes it really, really helps. It just gives me more to work with when the inventor puts real effort into describing the invention. When an inventor puts pencil to paper to try to fully describe their invention, I usually end up with a better understanding of the invention. Much more important is that it just help the patent come out better. It just gets us started a little closer to the endpoint, and as a results-oriented individual, I like that. ![]() I love to see self-drafting for a few reasons: First, it makes my job a little easier, and I appreciate that. It can take a lot of dedication to try to draft a patent for the first time. A sort of non-disclaimer: I love it when my clients draft their own applications. ![]()
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