A handout prepared by the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPT0), adapted from the work of librarian Mark White from Queen's University's Engineering & Science Library.
Key Elements of a Patent
A patent document typically consists of four sections:
a front or cover page, that contains bibliographic information aka information about the patent
text, which describe the invention and which may also be termed the disclosure or the specification
claims, which define the scope of an invention and are the legal 'meat' of the patent
drawings, which are optional
Titles and abstracts can be misleading - sometimes intentionally so - or simply reflect wishful thinking
The order of inventors' names is not important
Typically, employees must assign their discoveries to their employers
Assignees are known outside of the US as applicants
References can be very useful for finding other related patents OR key literature on a topic
IPC codes are a combination of letters and numbers and are VERY useful in finding other relevant patents
You may see one or more numbers on a patent document, including:
an application number (assigned upon filing), e.g. US 60/742,542, WO 2008/024129 A2
an publication number (number assigned to the application when published), e.g. US 2004/0231189 A1
Applications within PCT-member countries must be published within 18 months
the (granted) patent number (if application granted), e.g. US 6,993,858 B
Similarly, you may see multiple dates
The filing date, which is the date of filing
The priority date, which will often be the same as the date of filing but not always
The priority date is key for establishing novelty or usefulness of a patent
The patent issue date (the date the patent was granted)
Things to Remember
Term of patent is based on date patent application was filed, NOT the date the patent was granted or issued
There are no 'international' patents - only PCT applications!
PCT applications will begin with WO (for WIPO, the administrator of PCT); once granted by member countries, WO is replaced by country code, e.g. CA, US, JP, CH, DE
Patent 'family' = WO application + country-specific patents
Assignee information may not be current; if a patent has been purchased or reassigned, this may not be reflected in patent document but should be captured in patent prosecution activity (see Patent Resources for a resource that mauy help you track US patent reassignments)
However, patent licensing information may not be disclosed and is often challenging to research
Trade or 'everyday' product or service names rarely appear in their corresponding patent applications or patents
The claims of a patent outline the intellectual property being protected against infringement
Independent claims describe the invention in the broadest possible terms
Dependent claims are used to limit independent claims and are deployed typically to protect against potential infringement on other patent claims or assert the obvious/novel/useful character of the invention
Wording in claims matters
comprising ≠ consisting essentially of ≠ consisting of
One drug or device almost always involves multiple patents, with staggered filing dates
