Reviewing Your Proposed Patent Applications

• Author: Donald S. Rimai
• Profession: Recently retired from Eastman Kodak where he worked as a researcher and intellectual property manager in digital printing and adhesion science
• Pages: 157-167

157

Look Before You Leap

You dened your invention, proposed at least one independent claim and,

hopefully, a set of dependent claims that describe your invention. You con-

ducted a prior art search and found several relevant patents or other docu-

ments that, perhaps, appear close to your invention. Perhaps you found

articles or patents that, although not in your eld, can be potentially argued

to anticipate your invention.

Your invention is part of the technology that you and your teammates

are developing for your new product. Similarly, the patent application on

which you are presently working is part of the portfolio that you and your

coworkers are developing to protect your valuable intellectual property.

As previously stated in this book, when you develop and implement such

a patent strategy correctly, you will have established a proprietary posi-

tion that allows you to exclude others from your market, enables you to

access technology belonging to your competitors through cross-licensing

11

Reviewing Your Proposed

Patent Applications