- The article uses a cake-baking analogy: the quality of the raw ingredients (how the invention is described and analyzed) sets the maximum possible value of the finished patent that comes out of the Patent Office.
- Low-quality inputs at the drafting stage cannot produce a high-value, litigation-quality patent, no matter how the application is later prosecuted.
- The author argues that many patent applications filed today skip critical preparatory steps, which he says causes clients, including sophisticated ones, to lose significant value from their resulting patents.
The asset value of every patent in your portfolio is like making a cake. After you mix up the raw ingredients (description of invention), you have a raw dough (patent application).
To get your cake (patent), you must bake the ingredients in the oven (Patent Office).
The ingredients that patent attorneys “bake in” at the beginning set the maximum potential value for the end product. If your patent attorney’s batter included “slightly aged” eggs or stale flour, would you expect a fresh, great-tasting cake to pop out of the oven?
Well, the same concept applies to patents. For patent applications that are made from low quality inputs at the beginning, you don’t expect a high value litigation quality patent to pop out of the US (or any other) patent office.
That would be silly, right?
Well, based on my observations of many cases that have been drafted (mixed) and prosecuted (baked) by a wide range of patent firms, I find that far too many patent owners have been served far too many patent cakes made from rotten ingredients that were baked at the wrong temperature for the wrong amount of time!
My #1 Best Seller, “Patent Offense” identifies the critical ingredients that need to be pulled out and put on the table before the drafting process even starts. If these essential ingredients are left to chance, so is the full potential value of the patent.
I believe the epidemic of failure to start with these essential ingredients in most patents that are filed today directly causes the loss of tremendous wealth of both unsuspecting and even sophisticated clients who are relying on their outside patent counsel to handle drafting and prosecuting quality patent assets.
