Preparing patent drawings is the key constituent of a Non-Provisional (Utility) Patent application. The USPTO obligates the inclusion of drawing disclosures in the application to understand the usable features of the invented product. The patent drawings help in illustrating the invention as per the claims mentioned in the patent application. An innovator must seek assistance from professional draftsmen to provide appropriate patent drawings in the application. However, one may also think of preparing patent drawings on his own. But, it becomes an intimidating task to construct the patent drawings as the USPTO requirements are uncommon and specific. Therefore, it’s unquestionably important to provide all drawing disclosures in a patent application with 100% compliance to the USPTO guidelines.
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Preparing Patent Drawings: Key Requirements
Applicants who wish to formulate patent drawings must follow the USPTO guidelines to provide ideal patent applications. However, if the applicant fails to do so, he might come across the application getting delayed or remaining incomplete. This poses a potential barrier in a technical domain where the applicant has numerous competitors. In addition to this, the applicant may also lose the opportunity to receive the benefit of an earlier filing date. Consequently, it leads to the dissolution of the money and efforts invested in filing a patent application. Hence, the applicant must follow the guidelines to avoid a patent application rejection.
Black and White Drawings:
one must use black or white-colored inks such as India Ink or any equivalent brand while preparing patent drawings. India Ink is recommended as it’s a dark ink that comprises carbon particles used to prepare architectural drawings. One may use the traditional way of preparing patent drawings while using a pen and ruler. Although there is a small room for errors, one must construct drawings carefully as it is difficult to correct the misplaced Ink lines. Consequently, an applicant must have a drawing perspective to create an appropriate drawing disclosure.
Color Drawings:
colored drawings are essential when it explains the subject matter in the application in the best way. To do so, the applicant must file at least three sets of colored drawings with the application. The applicant must also file a USPTO petition to get access to include colored drawings. Moreover, the applicant must a pay petition fee and state in the application that it contains colored drawings.
Photographs:
USPTO considers the inclusion of photographs essential when only preparing patent drawings is not sufficient to describe the claims patented. Consequently, photographs are not considered appropriate in a utility patent application. However, when used, must possess the adequate quality to represent all claims after getting published. Photographs inserted may include photographs of electrophoresis gels, cell cultures, animals, plants, or even crystalline structures.
Types of Views:
The applicant must include as many drawing views as possible in a patent application. Views help in revealing the visual characteristics of the invented product while displaying views from the top, front, bottom, rear, left, and right sides. Moreover, according to patent drawing guidelines all the views should be arranged together on a sheet with minimum wastage of space.
Shading:
Shading helps in denoting different surfaces including conical, cylindrical, and circular surfaces. Except for representing bar graphs or colors, solid black shading is not permitted while preparing patent drawings.
Scale:
The scales should portray patent drawings even when reduced to 2/3rd of their size. In addition to this, the scale must be large enough to avoid any over-crowding or overlapping of figures.
Patent Drawing Identification:
The top margin must be provided with the title of the invention, inventor’s name, the application number, and docket number.
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Importance of Using Computer Drawing Software While Preparing Patent Drawings
The USPTO does not obligate the incorporation of patent drawings in Provisional utility patent applications. Whereas, it is expected to provide powerful patent drawings in a Non-provisional utility patent application. An applicant may seek assistance from this computer drawing software while preparing patent drawings himself. It is stated so because software such as computer-aided drawing (CAD) programs helps an applicant in producing accurate and desirable drawings. Moreover, it is as easy to remove mistakes in software programs as it is in a word processor program.
An applicant may choose to buy equipment including high-resolution scanners or digital cameras if he wishes to file multiple patent applications rather than just one or two. A scanner can be used to scan and import the image to the CAD program. Similarly, the camera may capture the invention and import it to the CAD program. Therefore, such equipment is optional, productive, and less expensive than CAD programs which may charge an applicant with several hundred dollars.
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PatSketch offers special services including Utility Patent Drawings, design patent drawings, engineering drawings, and trademark drawings. Additionally, it also provides services such as patentability searches and design patent searches to increase the credibility of a patent application. We perform multilingual searched in more than 16 languages in over 100 countries across the world. Moreover, the services are very quick to secure the earliest priority date.
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