With the growth of legal process outsourcing, a small minority of applicants, law firms and others attempted to outsource the preparation of a patent application abroad for filing in the United States. However, on July 23, 2008, the USPTO published a notice in the Federal Register that informed the inventing community that a foreign filing license from the USPTO is not an authorization to export subject matter out of the United States for the purposes of patent preparation services. Essentially, they put a stop to LPOs for patent work. Nonetheless, LPOs list patent work including patent preparation and patent searching services on their websites which may be a violation of foreign filing license and EAR requirements.

DIY Patent Search 3 Steps for effectively searching the prior art Watch the seminar   Web based patent seminar on how to conduct your own patent search in three steps. The three steps include: Brainstorming keywords; Finding the right class/subclass; and Conducting your search. By attending this seminar, you will: Understand the overall process of [...]

After brainstorming keywords related to your invention and finding a list of relevant classes and subclasses, search the United States Patent and Trademark Office databases or a third party patent document database (e.g., freepatentsonline.com) for relevant patent documents. Limitations on search Upon filing of a patent application, the patent application remains secret for a period [...]

The United States Patent and Trademark Office classifies all inventions into one or more of about 450 different classes.  Each class is further divided into numerous subclasses.  There may be up to a 1000 subclasses per class.  The classes describe a generic category.  The subclasses describe specific features of each of the categories. Benefit of [...]

In this stage of the patent search, brainstorm as many keywords related to your invention.  The brainstorming session should be inclusive.  There will be additional time later during the search process to eliminate keywords that are not particularly useful. Heteronyms Heteronyms are words that have the same spelling but different meanings.  The patent search is [...]

A patent search is a review of the prior art (i.e., exiting technology) to determine the likelihood that the United States Patent and Trademark Office would grant a patent on your invention. Benefits There are numerous benefits to a patent search.  Inventors and business may rely on the opinion to decide whether to invest additional [...]

The Unites States Patent and Trademark Office publishes their own guide to conducting a patent search on the USPTO’s website.  I’ve broken down the steps suggested by the USPTO into three different stages to make things easier to remember. Step 1: Brainstorming Keywords The first stage of the patent search is the keyword discovery stage. [...]

The two online patent search resources that I utilize the most to retrieve patent documents and to research patents are freepatentsonline.com and the uspto.gov website. The uspto.gov website provides two different databases.  One for issued patents and one for published patent applications.  Some published patents applications mature into a patent but some do not.  Hence, [...]

After a patent application is filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, each individual involved with the patent application has a duty to disclose information that is material to the patentability of the invention.  Failure to disclose all material information coupled with an intent to mislead the Patent Office may jeopardize the validity [...]