By Kenneth Solomon of Gallop, Johnson & Neuman, L.C.A poorly drafted patent can have disastrous results. It can serve to give
away your most valuable secrets, cost millions in a doomed defense of it and even open the patent
holder up to liability.
Patents are deceptively complex legal instruments requiring great skill, practice and
training to draft well. Likewise, guiding the patent application through the examination process in
the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office -- what we call “prosecuting the application” -- is a
very complicated procedure that also requires great skill and training to do well.
Because of the intricacies, idiosyncrasies and often counter-intuitive nature of patent
law, neither a layperson nor even an inexperienced patent lawyer can evaluate whether a patent
application has been well-drafted or poorly-drafted or whether it has been well-prosecuted or poorly
prosecuted.
Whether a patent application is well-drafted depends on knowledge of many arcane
and complex interrelated patent laws and rules. It also requires a familiarity and acquired facility with
techniques of patent drafting, and an appreciation of the technology involved and the state of the
known technology.
Drafting and prosecuting a patent application is an art that is learned by way of a
true apprenticeship that requires years of intensive tutelage under the guidance...
