The Firm’s Patent Filing and Prosecution Process
Attorneys at the Firm draft, file, prosecute, defend, enforce, and license patents. The Firm’s attorneys typically travel to the customer’s location to create the necessary personal working relationship with inventors by interacting directly with them. The Firm’s attorneys enjoy being “hands on” by participating in meetings with the inventors, designing experiments, assisting in the lab, and analyzing experimental results with the inventors. Inventors do not hesitate to contact the Firm’s attorneys, because the inventors know there is no charge for each communication under our flat fee. The Firm sends attorneys to the customer’s location so that they can draft a better quality patent application by touching and feeling the invention. It is well known that, in addition to having significantly higher costs in the later stages1, poor quality patent applications are less likely to issue, more difficult to enforce, and are often invalidated.
Why File for a Patent?
Patents increase the value of a business in three ways:
- Patents offer business owners the ability to keep others from making, using, or selling their patented products or processes. This means a patent owner can use its patented product or process to gain market share or increase margins.
- Businesses can license or sell patents, generating residual income that would not otherwise flow to the business.
- Patents increase the investment value of a business. Many investors and lenders will not risk investing in a business that does not have some type of patent protection for its products and processes.
Businesses that fail to investigate and use a patent strategy potentially miss significant opportunities.
Do Not Delay
Do you have an invention that you wish to commercialize or show to others? If so, contact a patent attorney – any patent attorney – immediately.
Patent laws offer no forgiveness regarding disclosing the invention before filing the patent application. Failing to file a patent application before disclosing your invention to others will make it almost impossible to obtain a patent. The disclosure rules have few exceptions.
Types of disclosure include, but are not limited to:
- Showing or displaying your invention to potential investors, friends and family
- Applying for state or federal funding
- Applying for small business loans
- Using your invention in the presence of others
- Offering to sell your invented products or processes
If you have an invention and would like to speak with an attorney at the Firm about patenting your invention, please contact us as soon as possible.
* Currently provided on a flat-fee basis.
1Patel, Sheetal, “Want to Cut Costs? Get Back to Basics,” IP Law and Business (October-November 2009), pages 31-32