How do patents make money?
Business owners obsessed with return on investment are rightly selective on filing patents. Not all products are worth patenting. Investing in patent protection makes sense for profitable concepts. For patents to make money, the claims must broadly cover the competition. Narrow patents might not do much to stop competition.
Need to obtain a patent that actually helps your business make money? Contact US patent attorney Vic Lin at vlin@icaplaw.com to explore working with us.
What does a broad patent claim look like?
Patents are peculiar. Normally, when you think of something being broader or greater, you tend to think of more. Patent claims are the inverse of that. Less is more when it comes to utility patent claims.
You want each independent claim to say only as much as necessary to be allowable over the prior art. Moreover, the language in your independent claims needs to reach the right balance. On the one hand, your independent claims should include features sufficient to overcome prior art rejections.
On the other hand, avoid extraneous features that competitors can easily omit. Too often, potential clients approach our firm with patents written by others where the independent claims contain several features that enable simple design-arounds.
What does a broad specification look like?
Unlike the claims where we prefer to say less, we generally take the opposite approach when it comes to preparing the written specification and drawings. We want the specification to provide as much detail as possible with as many embodiments as the inventors can reasonably come up with. The more patent drawings, the better.
Why? The specification provides support for the claims, and a more robust specification provides ammunition for filing continuing applications. Filing continuing applications is a wise strategy frequently used by large companies. Clients savvy in IP understand that competitors will try to find ways to design around your parent patent, so it helps to file child applications to build a patent portfolio.
The goal is to build a moat. Continuing applications make it harder for competitors to build competing products.
How do you get utility patents that make money?
Ideally, patent claims should help you gain market share. If competitors can easily design around your patent, expect to see similar products sold by others at lower prices. Patents with broad claims enable you to block competitors from selling similar products.
Our firm helps patent owners enforce their patents against Amazon sellers. Broad independent claims in utility patents tend to enjoy more success in Amazon APEX cases because the rules of APEX limit the types of invalidity challenges that can be brought by accused infringers.
Be careful with APEX. You may want to consult with a patent attorney before requesting an Amazon neutral patent evaluation. An accused Amazon seller can turn around and file a lawsuit against the patent owner in federal court seeking declaratory judgment of noninfringement.
Utility patent owners who choose to use APEX might end up fighting a much more expensive legal battle in the accused seller’s home court.
How do you get broad design patents?
A design patent has only one claim, and it consists of the drawings. To get a broader design patent, consider using broken lines in the drawings. An experienced patent attorney can work with you to make strategic use of broken lines to broaden the scope of your design patent.
Want to work with us?
Reach out to US patent attorney Vic Lin at vlin@icaplaw.com to explore how we can help you get patents that will help your drive your sales.
