By Ronald SluskyRonald Slusky mentored dozens of attorneys in “old school” invention analysis
and claiming principles over a 31-year career at Bell Laboratories. He is now in private practice in New
York City. This article is adapted from his book “Invention Analysis and Claiming: A
Patent Lawyer’s Guide” published by the American Bar Association and
available at ababooks.org. Ron can be reached at 212-246-4546 and rdslusky@verizon.net
Previous columns advanced problem-solution analysis as a powerful paradigm for
surfacing the concept underlying an invention. Central to that analysis is the problem-solution
statement—a one-sentence definition of the invention, stating as broadly as possible a) the
problem the invention solves, and b) the inventor’s solution to that problem, but without the
overall problem-solution statement reading on the prior art.
Here, for example, is a problem-solution statement for L’Esperance’s
pioneering invention for laser-surgery eyesight correction2:
The problem of correcting sight is solved by operating
solely upon the anterior surface of the cornea of the eye using selective ultraviolet irradiation and
attendant ablative photodecomposition of the...
