How to Easily Write Your Initial Patent Description

Pete Fenner, October 15 2013

The Search Real Fast booklet, “The First 7 Critical Steps in the Patent Process”,  suggests that your first step should be to create a written description of your idea.  This description can be as simple as a fairly detailed outline of your invention.  It does not need to be a full English prose detailed description… unless you already have such a document.  Your outline simply needs to answer certain basic questions about your invention idea.  The USPTO* offers the following four basic questions:

  1. What does it do?  What are the essential functions of the invention?
  2. What is it used for?  What is the intended use of the invention and what may be some alternative uses?
  3. What is the end result?  What is the goal or purpose of the invention… the essential effect or product?
  4. What is it made of?  What physical elements (steel, copper, digital circuits, software code, etc. ) make up the invention and what alternative elements might also be used?
  5. In addition to those four questions, here’s another one to answer as part of your initial description:
    How does it work?  What are the basic component parts of the machine and/or steps or sequence of operation required to reach the end result?  Are there multiple sequences of steps or interactions which reach the same or different results?  How do the basic parts interact?

Again, don’t overly concern yourself with the elegance of your language or the exact terminology.  The initial description will be refined as you proceed on the patent process.

My next blog entry will consider how Search Real Fast helps you refine your initial description so that your search efforts can be even more effective.  And, then I’ll offer some tips on how you can write a refined description.

(*See http://www.uspto.gov/video/cbt/ptrcsearching/ for a slide show tutorial on patent searching.)