By Ronald Slusky
Ronald 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...
