To Crush Your Competition A Robust Patent Is Essential Discover How and Why

- If you plan to license you should plan to file a patent.

- If you plan to develop and sell your product for a short period of time it may not be worth filing a patent. First of all, always perform a patent search with a patent agent or attorney to make sure that you are not infringing on anyone's patent.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office receives hundreds of thousands of patent applications each year. In fact, the Patent Office has recently proposed new patent rules to ease the Examiner workload. In light of the new rule, unless the patent applicant masters the complexities of patent law, the applicant might end up getting a weak patent instead of a strong one.

Imagine you have filed a patent application where you have defined your invention broadly as well as narrowly in ten succinct sentences in what are known as patent claims. Claim 4 refers back to claim 3, which in turn refers back to claim 2. Claim 5 refers back to claim 1 or claim 4. In this example, say claim 5 refers back to claim 1. You, as patent applicant, have a chance to respond to the Examiner. This time, the Examiner softens a little and says, in a non-final rejection, that invention of claims 4 to 10 would be allowable as a patent if you rewrite claim 4 without a reference to claim 1, but continues to reject the broader invention of claims 1, 2, and 3. You can rewrite claim 4 as the Examiner indicated, as new claim 1, and obtain a patent with new claim 1. The Examiner will argue that original claim 5 referred back to original claim 1. You will get a patent with just one claim. If an infringer challenges your patent, and proves that your only claim is invalid, your entire patent would be thrown out.