Inventors invest their hard earn money, along with time and effort to develop an intellectual property. And to secure its rights on their own name, they need to file patent application for it at USPTO. But the lack of knowledge on matters of patent prosecution, preparing an effective patent draft, leaves them prone to office action. So, if you are also an inventor looking to file patent application, you must proofread it before filing it with USPTO. It will make you discard the reasons for office action in future. You can do so with the help of patent proofreading tools of your patent attorney partner. It will make you discard the reasons for office action in future.
This article will tell you clearly, how to use patent proofreading tools effectively. Thus, if you want to save your application from facing office action, you must read this article and decide your fate.
Also read: Patent Proofreading Software: All You Need to Know
What do you mean by patent proofreading?
Patent proofreading is the process of reading your patent application line by line, word to word and find any discrepancies if any. It also includes rechecking the drawings you attach to the application to find for errors in it. The errors are those things which are not acceptable or are missing in your application as per the guidelines of USPTO.
Thus, patent proofreading services you hire, does a thorough examination of your patent application before you file it with USPTO. So, with the definition of USPTO you must have got the idea of its importance for your patent application. Still we have put more light on the need of patent proofreading tools for you in the next section. So keep reading.
What is the need of patent proofreading tools?
Patent proofreading tools and services are helpful if you want to maintain the quality and applicability of your patent application. It will help you find out every kind of errors in your application, which an ordinary person can’t find the application, but it will do it.
The errors could be, clerical mistakes, spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, incorrect numbering of claims, etc. These errors if not omitted completely change the meaning of the things you write in the application. Hence the examiner takes the sentences in the way it is written in the application. And if it is wrong, he will take it wrong, and issues you an office action.
These errors can be anywhere in the patent application, introductory page, specifications, hidden in the drawings, or claims section. The drawing errors can be, using incorrect lines, errors in numbering the different drawings, incorrect labeling of drawings, etc. So, if all these errors go undetected to the USPTO, an office action is unavoidable.
Thus, using patent proofreading services, you can avoid the office action significantly. It eliminates the possible reasons for office actions, before those reasons bring office action to you. Thus, if you are wise, and want to keep the problems away before they become too big for you, use the patent proofreading tools.
Also read: Office Action on Patent: Reasons & Solutions
What are the patent proofreading tools?
Many professionals rely on performing the manual process of proofreading the patent applications. However, the manual process involves looking over submitted or approved and granted patents for any mistakes that applicants have not noticed or is not evident in the documents that USPTO is printing.
Although experts are able to spot even the tiniest mistakes however, the repeated nature of their work implies that mistakes are often unintentionally introduced or missed.
With the increasing competition in the marketplace professionals are facing increasing pressure to lower costs. They have to work harder and with a faster turnaround times to ensure that the applications are 100 100% exact. This is why the automation tool comes in handy.
So if you are thinking of hiring an automated patent proofreading tools, this what you get from it:
- It ensures that the quality of the work delivered is good. The result you get are highly accurate and it identifies all the types of error that can be found.
- Since it is automated, hence it saves your valuable time. Thus, you can utilize this time to focus on other core areas of your patent development.
You can use the automated patent proofreading tools to proofread he abstract, claims, specifications, comparisons, and the list of references. It is also able to carry out a general spelling and grammar check.
Also read: Patent Filing Strategy for Building Stronger Patent Portfolio
Limitations of automated tools
There is no doubt that automatic software tools save costs and time of the applicant. Thereby, allowing you to concentrate on other important works. However, automated tools cannot completely replace the manual proofreading, thus work that you must proofread manually are following:
- the face page of your patent application i.e., the title, applicants and inventors, assignee.
- It includes application number, filing date of application, publication number, publication date, references cited, Cooperative Patent Classification, US classification, examiners, attorney, agent and/or firm.
- Use manual proofreading for drawings and drawing tags;
- Formulae or special characters (eg, $, %, ^, #, α, β, γ and &);
- Characters, such as commas, full stops, semi-colons and colons;
- Antecedent errors, which are generally an observation for the attorney;
- Consistency in claims; and
- Renumbered claims.
Patent paralegal force: How we can help you?
Patent proofreading decide the future of your application, whether it will receive office action or not. Thus, doing it with accuracy should be the top agenda for you. And if you are thinking of doing it yourself, you might be doing more harm to you than good. It is because, inexperienced proofreading will never eliminate the errors from your application. Thus, you need the guidance of an expert who does proofreading as a professional work, and we do exactly the same. Thus, hire the professional proofreading services of “Patent Paralegal force”
The complete security for our clients is our goal and we do not compromise on the matter. We perform several checks and quality checks before delivering you your final report on proofreading. This way, we make sure that your application doesn’t have even the tiniest of mistakes. Find out more about us here.
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