Parts Of An Application

The first thing that you need to know about how to patent the product is the process for patenting a product.

Patenting a product has essentially two stages.  The first is patent application preparation, and the second is patent application prosecution.

In order to patent a product, you first have to prepare a patent application.  A patent application, generally speaking has 5 major parts:

  1. Background – This is usually less than 1.5 pages.  In the background section, you describe the problem that motivated you to create the product that you are trying to patent.
  2. Drawings – The drawings are visual aids that help you explain to a layman how to make and use the product that you are trying to patent.  You know that you have enough drawings when you have enough drawings that someone who knows how to make and use a product of the type that you are trying to patent would be able to look at the drawings and know how to make and use your invention.  Sometimes as many as 20 figures will be used.
  3. Detailed description – The detailed description is a narration of the drawings.  In it, you include the details of the product that you are trying to patent at a level such that someone  who knows how to make and use a product of the type that you are trying to patent would be able to make and use the invention based on the text.  Detailed descriptions can be very detailed.  In complex inventions, this can be ten-or-twenty thousand words.  The language used should be clear and easy to understand.
  4. Claims – The claims are the legal description that tells people what product is patented in as few words as possible.  When you patent a product, the claims are critically important, because they are the legal description of what you own for the purpose of enforcement in court.  The language is sometimes very complex.
  5. Abstract – The abstract is a very brief (less than 150 words) description of the product that you are patenting.  It is included so that someone with very little time can look quickly at the patent on your product and decide if the patent is relevant to what they are trying to do.

Now that you understand the parts of a patent application, a few words about the process of how to patent a product will make more sense.  You (or, if you’re smarter about it, your lawyer) will prepare a patent application, which you will file with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

After some length of time, which can be either months or years, the USPTO will send you a document called an office action.  The office action explains why the USPTO is going to or is not going to give you a patent on your product.  Usually, the FIRST answer is “no.”   You then get a patent on your product by arguing and negotiating with the USPTO until you agree with them that a patent should issue on the product and you agree on what the claims should say.  This will involve several office actions and several responses by you or your lawyer.

At the end of the process, the patent office issues a notice of allowance and the patent issues.  At that point, you have a patent on your product.