Patent it yourself

What Hacker News says

1. btrettelNov 2022
   The USPTO has some training for registered patent attorneys and agents: https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/events/international-agents-a...

   It's apparently based on the training examiners get.

   The USPTO also posts a lot of the slides they use for training: https://www.uspto.gov/learning-and-resources/examiner-traini...

   Otherwise, I'm confident there's information out there on how to search patents, but I haven't seen it.

   But I think examining an actual application will be more useful for you. You can do this yourself as practice. Find a patent application that was examined. Be sure to pick an application and not a granted patent. In the US the number will be formatted like USYYYYXXXXXXXA1. You want to do an examined one so that you can compare against what the examiner did. That will be pretty easy if you pick one that was published a while back, so YYYY could be like 2015. On Google Patents for the application you picked, look for "External links" on the top right and go to "USPTO PatentCenter". Then under "Documents & Transactions" on the left, look for "Non-final rejection". If there's a rejection posted then you can see what the examiner did and compare against what you did when you're done.

   Look at the independent claims of the application and find prior art that fits the claims. Don't check what the examiner did before you search, just try searching on your own. Write an office action (the report listing why it's the same). "Map" the claims by putting in parenthesis after each claim element why the prior art shows this feature. For example:

   > A widget (Bob fig. 6 shows a widget) with blue lights (Bob fig. 6 shows the lights; para. 0076 says that the lights are blue).

   When you're done, compare against what the examiner did.

   Be aware that it probably will take you several weeks or longer to do your first one.

   Here's the USPTO's new public search tool, which is similar to the one used by examiners (main difference is that the public version only has US patent documents): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/static/pages/landing.html?...

   You could also read a book like Patent it Yourself by David Pressman to better understand the legal aspects than what you'll get from the USPTO's slides.

   You also might be interested in some other suggestions I've made here on designing patent search systems: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33519398

   (Again, like my other comments here, this is just my opinion, not that of the USPTO or US government.)

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2. btrettelApr 2022
   For an accessible introduction to patent legalese, I'd recommend taking a look at a recent edition of the book Patent It Yourself by David Pressman. I can't say it'll cover all that I learned as an examiner, but it's well written and covers a lot.

   Also: A lot of the legalese I encountered as a patent examiner was "lexicographic definitions", that is, where a patent applicant writes somewhere in the patent specifications that a certain term or phrase has a particular meaning. Applicants didn't always make those easy to find... I recall one where (as I recall) they defined "insulation" to including something that can cool something down, which strikes me as simply wrong and confusing. That definition was basically hidden right in the middle of the patent application. It was necessary to find that definition to understand the claims. If the term is something I hadn't seen before then I would have just search for it, but for something common in the field I examined like "insulation", I wouldn't normally search for that. This is really annoying and unfortunately okay under USPTO rules.

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3. plumeriaJul 2021
   What about "Patent It Yourself: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Filing at the U.S. Patent Office" by David Pressman?
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4. billsimmsJul 2020
   If you haven't already done so then you might read "Patent It Yourself Your Step-by-Step Guide to Filing at the U.S. Patent Office" by David Pressman, published by Nolo. There is a vast amount of expertise in that book. There are also "How to Make Patent Drawings" and "Inventor's Cookbook" to go along with that, also from Nolo, but I have not read those.
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5. mohene1Jan 2012
   Patent It Yourself by - David Pressman gives a comprehensive overview of the Patent process. This article is a good intro, but I think "Can it make serious money" is no.1
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6. juwoApr 2007
   Under US law, it is first to invent, not first to file. Read David Pressman's book on Patent It Yourself.

   The fact that you emailed her the presentation, IF any ideas are patentable, is proof enough.

   This also proves those wrong who say that "Ideas are worthless".

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