Procedure for Drafting and Filing a Patent Explained

By Robert Games
Once a patent attorney has all of the details of your invention, they will usually prepare a patent specification for you to review. This specification generally includes a written description of the invention including optional features and advantages.

The description usually refers to drawings with reference numbers which will clearly identify the features of your invention. The patent attorney should then also draft a set of Claims.

The claims are the legal definition of your invention. In other words, the claims define the monopoly that you are seeking. A patent attorney should be skilled in drafting claims for inventions in many technical subject areas. The patent attorney should prepare claims which will define your invention in a way to obtain the broadest protection possible for you. The patent attorney should also draft an abstract, which is a patent office requirement.

Once the specification has been prepared, your patent lawyer will usually email or post it to you for your approval. If you feel that any changes need to be made or further subject matter needs to be included, they should then do this before filing a patent application on your behalf.

Once prepared, the attorney in most cases will file your patent application with a search request and pay the official fees for you. This can sometimes be done online and the official fees are deducted from the attorney's deposit account held at the Intellectual Property Office. They will then receive a filing receipt by return and report this to you with a full copy of the patent application as filed. The application then sits in a queue at the Intellectual Property Office until it is searched by a Patent Examiner some 4 months later.

The search is a novelty search and a search report is often sent to the attorney, which they should briefly review and forward to you with an explanatory letter. On filing, they are likely to pay an extra fee to the Intellectual Property Office which means that they receive two copies of the search report and the documents accompanying the search report, one copy for you and one copy for their file.

Your patent attorney should always advise filing a search request on filing, unless there are special circumstances.

Albright Patents is a full service UK based patent and trademark attorney company offering representation before the UK Patent Office (UKIPO), the European Patent Office (EPO) and internationally before WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation). We can also file patent applications in almost any country throughout the world.