Yes!! Professional patent drawings can help you save thousands of dollars. The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is an international patent law treaty, concluded in 1970. This treaty offers a unified procedure for filing patent applications to protect inventions in each of its contracting states. Thus, if you file a patent application under the PCT, it is an international application, or PCT application.
Also Read: Preparing Patent Drawings: Key Points to Remember
PCT Filing Guidelines
For those who are unaware of PCT guidelines, PCT has no provision for photographs. However, you can only use them where it is impossible to present drawings. Moreover, one must ensure that they are reproducible and fulfill the applicable requirements for drawings (e.g. paper size, margins, etc.).
You can include color photographs but they in a scanned and printed form, and make it available via file inspection only in greyscale. Doing the same manually OR with the scanner is pretty a bad idea. Scanners are not capable to convert and produce grey images with high-resolution which is a mandate for PCT filing.
Recently, one of the leaders in the design and manufacture of medical Imaging products with distribution in both domestic and international channels needed assistance in filing patent drawings for multiple patent applications related to autoradiographs.
(Note: An autoradiograph is an imaging technique that uses radioactive sources present within the exposed sample such as cellular components. These components include DNA, RNA, proteins, or lipids, followed by labeling with suitable radioisotopes. Moreover, you cannot illustrate them with line drawings due to its complex structure and minute visual details.)
Also Read: Patent Drawing Rules: Latest USPTO Guidelines
Sagacious IP – Expertise on the Forefront
The client could have used the Autoradiograph images directly for filing. However, they were well aware of the consequences of getting objections on professional patent drawings based on the guidelines. Therefore, without taking any risk of rejection, they spent thousands of dollars on Office action (OA) response and replacement drawings. Rather, the client decided to approach a few patent drawing professionals. They could help him in providing formal and professional patent drawings that can comply with the PCT guidelines.
Hence, Sagacious IP brought in its expertise and helped the client in providing professional patent drawings for multiple applications. While the specifications look easy, they can cause rejections if drawings are prepared without consulting the professionals. Only an expert in this field, having relevant knowledge, experience, and tools can deal with these situations.
And the same happened here. The process to prepare the professional patent drawings for PCT filing went through a few important steps.
Also Read: Top 6 Most Unusual Drawings for Patents
Image refinement
Autoradiographs are usually blear and you cannot see them clearly. They require lots of focus to get the idea of the visuals. Therefore, we used multiple applications, e.g., Photoshops and Image processing applications, etc., to maintain the DPI. With that, we sharpened the quality to maximize the visibilities. Hence, we require an expert who knows the apt DPI for printed images and how they can be achieved.
Preparation
After refining and enhancing the resolution of the images, we inserted them into CAD programs to proceed further. We added all the required information as per the patent application requirements. This information included referral numerals, figure numbers, sheet numbers & other informative texts.
Complying with PCT –
All the information including images, texts, referral numerals, etc. was inserted. However, it was equally important to ensure that the prepared drawings were complying with the patent office guidelines. Otherwise, the patent application could get multiple rejections. Thus, we went through all the checkpoints of guidelines in the application. These included margins, text size, image quality, line quality, Sheet Size, number of required views, etc.
Hence, after conducting multiple quality checks, formal drawings were shared with the client for review. The client was satisfied with the output and proceeded with his application along with the formal drawings with ease.
Also Read: How Much Does a Utility Patent Cost You?
Conclusion
Thus, Sagacious IP helped the company to comply with PCT standards and get the professional patent drawings ready on time. Sagacious IP’s design and utility patent drawing services are backed by an experienced team of illustrators. They possess great expertise in creating professional patent drawings that are highly accurate. Moreover, these experts also provide a customer-friendly service through cost-effective products, and minimizing office actions. Click here to know more about this service.
– Hemant Kumar and Ankur (Illustration) and the Editorial Team
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