How to identify patent claims [Must Read]



Last updated : Sept 12, 2022
Written by : Demetrius Cumbass
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How to identify patent claims

What are the claims in a patent?

A patent claim defines the boundaries of an invention, and therefore lays down what the patent does and does not cover. A patent claim is the most important thing in a patent application, for it defines the subject matter that is sought to be protected.

What are the different types of patent claims?

  • Independent and dependent claims. An independent claim can be defined as a claim consisting of the limitations necessary to define an invention.
  • Mean plus function claim.
  • Apparatus claim.
  • Method claim.
  • Composition claim.

How do you check if an item has a patent?

  1. Patent Public Search.
  2. USPTO Patent Full-Text and Image Database (PatFT)
  3. USPTO Patent Application Full-Text and Image Database (AppFT)
  4. Global Dossier.
  5. Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR)
  6. Public Search Facility.
  7. Patent and Trademark Resource Centers (PTRCs)

Why do patents have multiple claims?

In a patent, the claims determine the exclusive rights granted to the patent owner. As such, the strength of a patent lies not only in the described invention, but also in its claims. Generally speaking, a patent with more claims is more likely to withstand challenges in an adversarial setting.

What is a example of a claim?

Claims are, essentially, the evidence that writers or speakers use to prove their point. Examples of Claim: A teenager who wants a new cellular phone makes the following claims: Every other girl in her school has a cell phone.

How are patent claims structured?

Every claim has three sections—the preamble, the transitional phrase, and the body of the claim. The preamble is the first part of the claim. In the writing instrument claim above, the preamble is the phrase “A writing instrument for making a mark on a writing surface”.

What is a Swiss type claim?

In Europe, a Swiss-type claim or "Swiss type of use claim" is a formerly used claim format intended to cover the first, second or subsequent medical use (or indication of efficacy) of a known substance or composition.

How many independent claims Can a patent have?

Since the USPTO filing fee for a utility nonprovisional application lets you have up to 3 independent claims and 20 total claims, we typically try to draft utility applications with three claim sets.

What are the parts of the claim?

Parts of a Claim A claim is generally presented in three parts, the preamble, a transitional phrase (or word), and the body.

How do I do a patent search?

Start at uspto.gov/patft. Next, under the heading Related USPTO Services, click on Tools to Help Searching by Patent Classification. You can now start searching. Patent searches may also be done at google.com/patents and at a number of other free sites.

How do I do a patent search on Google?

  1. Open the URL: www.google.com/patents.
  2. Type the name of the idea or some brief bit of text about the idea.
  3. Click Search.

How do you know if an invention is already patented?

Search the USPTO Check out the official website of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and click on the Full Text and Image Database. Search for existing patents, images and patent applications by using words that describe your idea.

What is the claim method?

Generally, method claims are claims that recite one or more steps. They are typically used to protect methods of making a product, using a product, or providing a service. Method claims are usually considered much weaker than product claims because method claims can be difficult to enforce.

How long should a patent claim be?

Claims should be 60 to 75 words long? Counsel explains to me that issued claims are seldom shorter than 60 to 75 words. Also, shorter claims are seldom allowed without further prosecution (which is another way of saying the same thing).

What is the fastest way to read a patent?

  1. Skip the title since it can be vague. Also some titles, like "Wireless Camera," might only apply to specific features and not the entire camera or it may point to an improvement on a prior invention.
  2. Skip the drawings.
  3. Skip the abstract and the specification.
  4. Read the independent claims.

What makes a strong claim?

Strong claims are debatable, focused, and specific. Strong reasons are logical and clear, and they directly support the claim, answering the question Why is this claim true? Strong evidence is accurate, convincing, and relevant to the argument at hand.

How do you start off a claim?

Start with a hook or attention getting sentence. Briefly summarize the texts • State your claim. Make sure you are restating the prompt. Include a topic sentence that restates your claim and your reason.

Is claims a part of patent document?

CLAIMS. The most important part of the document, the claims set forth and define the patent's scope of exclusive rights. In other words, they describe what the patent does or does not cover. Each claim element should be shown in the drawings and described in the detailed description.

Are patent claims independent?

Most patent applications have few independent claims and many dependent claims. It is important to remember that dependent claims must further limit the claim from which they depend. This is most frequently accomplished by claiming a more narrow range (where appropriate) or by the addition of more elements.

How do you write a good patent claim?

Starting to Draft Claims. First, include a claim that defines your invention in broad terms, leaving out any and all unnecessary options. Second, include another claim that defines your invention with as much specificity and with every option you can think of.


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How to identify patent claims


Comment by Reggie Nicolay

hello and thank you for joining us for another exciting episode of inventors quick tips today we are talking about the basics of patent claims patent claims are a very important part of the patent to a large extent they give the patent its value so here we are going to describe some of the basics about how claims work even if you don't write your own claims as an inventor you have an interest in getting a better understanding of how claims work so you can ensure that your patent applications are covering the important aspects of your invention so what are patent claims anyway think of a patent as a deed to some real estate just as the deed will recite the geographical coordinates of the land parcel the patent claims will state precisely what the invention is that is what exactly is it that someone else is not allowed to do without getting your permission first when someone makes uses or sells the invention you have claimed in a patent without permission it is called infringement when examining a patent for infringement it is the claims that will be checked against the infringing activity this is important to note in your patent application you can write and describe anything you want in the written description or specification as it's called of the patent application and you can and should describe all the details and all the cool features of your invention however when it comes time to determining infringement that is determining of someone else's using making selling your invention without permission it is the claims that are looked at to determine this now a regular patent application has claims at least one claimed provisional patent applications do not require any claims but many patent professionals include a a few claims in provisional applications so here we are going to discuss a set of very trivial sample claims these are not real claims and the purpose is simply to show how claim coverage works with multiple claims so in our example claim one we claim a car with a roof made out of vinyl that means while we are not claiming that we invented the car or even that we invented the concept of a roof on a car we are claiming that we have invented the concept of a vinyl roof on a car and that gives advantages in styling flexibility because the vinyl can be fabricated in different colors and textures for a unique look now we add a second claim claim to which recites that the roof is black claim one is referred to as an independent claim it stands on its own and does not refer to any other claims claim 2 is a dependent claim it depends from claim 1 in this case claim 2 is a further limiting claim it basically says take everything you have and claim 1 but further restrict it to a particular color of roof in this case black note that normally claiming objects of a particular color is not done and keep in mind that this is just an example to show you how claim 2 is more restrictive than claim 1 so now thinking about claim coverage if someone else had a car with a green vinyl roof that would be covered under claim 1 which pertains to all vinyl roofs no matter what color they may be but it would not be covered by claim to which only pertains to black vinyl roofs and now let's say someone had a car with a black metal roof what happens then while claim 2 recites a black roof it depends from claim 1 which means that claim 2 has all the limitations of claim 1 and claim 2 together so claim one says the roof must be vinyl claim two for the recites that the roof must be black so the car with the black metal roof is not covered by any of the two claims shown here since each of these claims must have a vinyl roof furthermore in addition to further limiting and invention a dependent claim can include additional structure that is not present in the independent claim here claim 3 includes a rain guard attached to the roof so that rain guard which is a thin rail that goes along the roof edge to keep water from dripping into slightly opened windows is the additional structure since claim 3 comes from claim 1 which says the roof is vinyl but doesn't specify the color then claim 3 is drawn to a car with a vinyl roof of any color and including the rain guard now to make an even more limiting claim we could have claimed 3 depend from claim 2 which depends from claim 1 now our claim 3 has the limitation to claim one roof is vinyl the limitations of claim to the roof is black along with limitations of claim 3 itself the rain guard is also included so dependent claims further limit or narrow the scope that is they cover something more specific than the top level independent claim now you might be wondering why have dependent claims at all after all if I invented a car with a vinyl roof why not just have one claim to a car with a vinyl roof and then be done with it that is a good question and there are various answers but the basics are that typically not every claim in our patent application survives some claims are removed during the course of the patent examination in our case if the Patent Office found out that someone else had a car with an orange vinyl roof before we filed our application then we would lose our claim one the broader more general acclaim is the easier it is to disqualify that claim the more specific claims like claim 3 of the example are harder to disqualify but the trade-off is they cover something that's more specific so in general it is considered good to have a range of claims going from broad to specific the United States allows up to 20 claims which includes three independent claims for the basic filing price more claims can be added for additional cost if it's necessary but in most case 20 claims does the trick so in summary I'm going to give you a couple of key points here that will help you in reading claims and are things to keep in mind when proofreading your own patent applications even if you are using the services of a professional to write your patent application you still want to be in a position to review the claims and know some things to look for the claims should not be introducing new terms that it that did not appear in the written description any term that has been used in a claim should have been explained in the text and in most cases also shown in at least one drawing so in our example when we have the claim with the rain guard we should be mentioning that rain guard in the written description and have at least one drawing showing the rain guard now we also want to give some thought to what is verifiable or discoverable that is how will we know if someone is making using or selling our invention let's take another example let's suppose I invented a hand-operated pencil sharpener with a special organ ama candle to crank it I could go to Walmart look on the shelf and instantly see that someone was selling my invention because I could just look at the handle its external and its visible so it's easily verifiable and discoverable now let's say that my claims are to a specific gear arrangement internal to the pencil sharpener it gets a little harder to verify I probably have to buy one of the pencil sharpeners and t


Thanks for your comment Reggie Nicolay, have a nice day.
- Demetrius Cumbass, Staff Member


Comment by Murray

whoo oh do some core workout oh oh man I'm here to talk to you about the core of Patton [Applause] hello my name is JD Hoover registered USPTO patent attorney I'm the managing partner here at CEO and build patents law firm today I want to dive deep and helping you better understand patent claim drafting and the six core principles you need to know before we get started I want you to know there are time stamps right down below you can fast forward to a specific subject matter that you're looking for but if you have time I highly encourage that you watch the whole video now this is also recorded in our blog article bold IP comm Ford slash blog I've written a full detailed 3,000 plus word article that goes into this in much more detail if you want to supplement this video let's go through the six core principles of patent claim drafting part 1 understanding patent law and USPTO rules on patent claims so the first rule about patent claims is that for some reason the law is structured such that the claims themselves they're not up front go to Google patents in the search the most recent patent that's been issued it's not on the first page you've got to scroll away at the bottom of the specification to find the numbered set of claims typically one through twenty and again their number you'll see that it starts out with the words I claim or we claim this is part of the rule now as you break down each claim let's say claim one which is usually in what's called an independent claim it has to be one sentence that's just a rule each claim must be only one sentence long the reason for that is the Patent Office wants to keep it limited so you're not going on and on talking about what you've invented you've got to be somewhat concise the true term is you've got a particularly claim your distinct invent now this is gonna make it much more difficult to read if you've ever read run-on sentences that's what claims are okay semicolons colons comma breaks and and what's interesting is that they can go on with multiple breaks in almost a non comprehensible way where there's line breaks several paragraphs all great made up into one sentence so let's talk about how the format of the claims goes and the different words that you're gonna see when you start to read the claims the formatting is important there has to be of course this this title section which is we claim or I claim and then you come to jump into what's called the preamble alright the preamble sets up the claim and it uses the terms comprising or including you'll save the foam football for play sports comprising okay the foam place for football comprise so they're gonna be describing as you know at football but they're that's just the preamble and the word comprising tells you that okay well it's gonna be including these things but comprising is an interesting word that's actually going to be able to include other things later it says well it's at least gonna be including the following elements so they're gonna probably describe how the structure right what that football looks like the angles the specific angles of incidents the drag maybe some little arrows they've got on the football I'm picturing one of these nerf balls right and they're going to go through all their from elements of how that football is shaped and what the functional benefits are for it but you can also use different terms that might limit you you can say including so that usually is a closed term it's going to limit you in terms of what sort of elements you're going to put down there the last section about formatting the claims is you must make sure you have what's called an antecedent basis an antecedent basis means you must always talk about words that you've introduced before so if I'm talking about this foam football and I later start talking about rubber specifically a rubber or nylon plastic if I haven't talked about that before in the structure that's going to be an antecedent basis issue and the examiner is going to reject it for that reason part three drafting an apparatus claim so much like any other claim apparatuses are probably the easiest to kind of get your arms around I mean literally their devices you can put your fingers and hands on them it's a similar structure we've got a preamble elements the key for apparatus is that you have support in the specification the specification is a fancy term for the written description of your invention the spec for short is going to cover lots of different structure ways that you're for our example this foam football is constructed right if you cut it in half what is it paint is there a common core what kind of adhesives would you use with the different plastic liners for the angle and then overall feathers on it no this support in the spec must be there if you're gonna be claiming it so let's say in the dependent claim you're talking about a dorsal fin on this football well if you don't talk about how a thin is attached to the football in the spec you're in big trouble alright so let's talk about process claims process claims are a different type of invention right this is the fourth category typical for software or for chemical processes the outcome of it is supposed to be beneficial right you're supposed to be providing that functionality and how do you do that by walking them through verbage you're gonna instead of showing them structure in elements you're going to be using verbs creating crafting articulating storing every single one of those elements is gonna help you roll up and create a process what's interesting is you have the control over whether you want to make them require to be in a sequence or if they can change the order if you use words like then or before or after now you're locking yourself into a specific order of operations in order to prove that someone else is infringing that claim you have to show that they're not only performing all of those steps but they're doing them in that order makes it more challenging and it limits your scope of rice so it's a careful point to make compositions of matter claims these are elements much like pharmaceuticals materials like metals where you're putting multiple elements together to form one molecular structure so composition of matter claims do tend to be more intricate in terms of their percentages they're going to mention percentage by weight we're gonna talk about the proportion of materials compared to the other substrate they'll talk instead of about structure and not really about the order of operations but what is the matter composed of right how is it structured now in addition to this I should also mention that there are usually more than one independent claims set and so it is possible for example in our apparatus claim for the football to talk about the structure apparatus claim an independent claims one and have a separate independent claim ten that goes into the method of construction all right so both of these can be put together in the same claim set last but not least our design patent claims totally different from utility patent the claim is only one there's only one claim and what it says


Thanks Murray your participation is very much appreciated
- Demetrius Cumbass


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