If you do a Google search for “how to patent an idea” you will run across a slew of resources to help you do it yourself, notably a book called Patent It Yourself, encouraging you to file your patent yourself.
Small business owners, bootstrapped startups, and independent inventors often choose to save cash by doing the work themselves. Legal services, including patents, are a service that people choose to conduct on their own, to varying degrees of success or consequence.
First off, if you have the book, I encourage you to read it. If you’re the type of person who likes to learn as much about a process before trying to bull through it, you’re off to a great start with filing patents.
On second look, however, if you haven’t filed your patent application yet, I encourage you to at least speak with an attorney. Here’s why:
The book cannot give you custom advice
DIY patent books will give you explicit instructions how to patent an idea, but they won’t give you customized instructions how to patent your idea. If your idea is patentable it will likely be something unique, therefore necessitating an individual approach to the patent application.
For instance, Patent It Yourself gives you an idea of how to write a dozen different kinds of claims. Let’s say you have a machine with a control circuit—which claim is best? Additionally, software claims have certain requirements if you want to use such common operators as conditional logic (if, then), while loops and so on. The book simply doesn’t go there.
The book does not know personnel at the patent office
Patent applications are reviewed by humans who use human judgment to approve or deny your patent. If you know these people, you’ll understand what types of arguments they find persuasive and which ones they don’t. Sometimes, a patent rejection can be a result of something as simple as not explaining a process a particular way.
A good patent attorney will explain to you his knowledge of the patent office environment, his background in successful patent applications, and will coach you through the right language that will resonate with the personnel at the patent office.
This is the second post in an eight-part series called How To Patent An Idea. To continue reading, please go to the next post, How To Patent An Idea—Should You Use a Provisional Patent Application Template?
If you’re reading out of order, no worries! Click here to go back to the first post, How To Patent An Idea—A Gross Oversimplification.