Avoiding Patent Application Pitfalls with Prior Art Insights
Discover 3 critical tips to master patent application pitfalls and enhance your invention’s standout features without overemphasizing prior art.
Describing Prior Art
Awareness of prior art is necessary in a patent application, but the more detailed your descriptions of it are, the more likely you may be to run into trouble. Avoid describing prior art beyond the hard facts of the invention, and before you actually get into the descriptions, learn about the right way to talk discuss the prior art in your application.
Comparing the Prior Art to Your Invention
New and excited inventors often make the mistake of drawing too many comparisons and parallels between their own inventions and prior art. This is one area where having a good patent attorney helps, as they know how to tread the fine line between giving too much weight to prior art (or not enough) and giving the needed weight to your invention. If you are acting for yourself in this matter, remind yourself that your main focus should be on your invention—what problems it can solve, what new avenues it can open up, what it can do—and not on prior art or what a different invention can do.
Naming Prior Art
When possible, avoid using the term “prior art” at all. Though this may seem to be slightly counterintuitive, using the term “prior art” can in fact be detrimental and render the inventor vulnerable during a prospective law suit . Think about the language you use in your patent application, and determine the best way to describe what you need to about the prior art—without actually mentioning the words.
Misunderstanding Background Purpose
Remember that the Background purpose is not to describe the history of your invention (you should not describe that in your patent application at all.) Generally, in Background, you have the Field of the Invention and Background—it’s in that last section that people mistakenly fill with words-to-be-avoided, like “prior art.”
This is a “short and sweet” overview of a few of the missteps new inventors, or even old ones who decide to file for themselves, can make. Read in detail before you begin your patent application, do at least an initial consult with a patent lawyer and pay attention to language and detail, and you’ll be better assured of success.
Contact your Patent Attorney to learn more.
