Refining patent ideas before filing

It’s easy to assume that all you need to file a patent is an invention that is novel, non-obvious and useful. If all you want is a patent to your name, that’s true, but if you want to achieve real value from it when it’s granted, you need to consider some additional criteria.

Martin can help you to:

• Think through how you could use the patent in your own products and solutions, and what effect it might have on attracting new customers, retaining existing ones, supporting higher prices or breaking into entirely new markets.
• Identify what is truly unique about your invention so that your patent attorney can focus claims wording on that area.
• Generalize the invention to cover more potential use cases.
• Consider how a competitor could circumvent the description and claims in your patent to achieve the same practical effect, nullifying the advantage that you’d hoped for, and then block those alternative embodiments.
• Write up your invention in a clear and concise format for delivery to your patent attorney and review patent drafts that they create in return.

Martin has extensive experience in probing potentially patentable ideas to identify weak spots and maximize their value if granted. 

For the avoidance of doubt, Martin is not a lawyer and does not offer legal advice, but he can work with your patent attorneys to ensure that claims accurately reflect the uniqueness and value of your ideas. He also does not perform more than cursory patent searches.