Patent Drafting Secrets – Techniques and Templates, a book co-authored by Lewis and Roca patent attorney Samantha A. Updegraff, is now available on amazon.com.  Patent Drafting Secrets - Techniques and Templates was designed and written specifically for inventors. With this short fact-filled book and the template, an inventor can quickly and easily prepare the bulk of a patent application without having to thumb through hundreds of pages of rules and regulations and useless text.  This will not only make the inventor more informed about the patent application, but will also enable the inventor to give their patent attorney an almost-complete patent application that is drafted in the style and language that patent attorneys use, greatly reducing the amount of time and money that the patent attorney will spend working on the patent application. 

Inventors are very busy people.  We know this for a fact because we have met with hundreds of them over the years.  Preparing and filing a quality patent application is expensive.  Because of this, inventors often ask “what can I do to help keep costs down?”  We are repeatedly asked to recommend a book or guide so that a new inventor can learn more about patent applications and the patent process.  Because of this, we have browsed through several different books and articles that are available – we have even purchased some of the other books along the way to see if they would be a good source to recommend to for someone new to the patenting process.  While many of the other books out there can be somewhat helpful, they all seem to share a common shortcoming - too much talk and not enough action. 

Unlike those books, we aren’t going to force you to sift through several hundreds of pages of text in the hope that you might find something meaningful – who has time for that?  If what you are looking for is voluminous content, then you don’t have to spend a penny on it - you can download it for free right here: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/index.htm.  That is the link to the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (a.k.a. the “MPEP”).  The MPEP is a bureaucratic marvel in print!  It is published by the U.S. Patent Office and, together with the laws that have been enacted by Congress, court cases that have been decided by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, as well as those decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, is the controlling authority on how patent applications are reviewed at the patent office. 

If you have been searching for low cost patenting options, you have undoubtedly come across some of the companies and websites out there that purport to “help” you draft and file your own patent application.  If you decide to go that route and not have an attorney represent you, we recommend downloading and studying the MPEP, as these companies and website only go so far with “helping”.  We highly recommend having an experienced patent attorney who can review your application and draft high quality claims to give you the maximum protection possible for your invention.  Keep in mind that the vast majority of all utility patent applications are rejected at least once.  When this happens, you need an experienced attorney in your corner that can craft arguments and file a formal response which convincingly argues for the allowance of your patent application. 

Unlike the majority of other books that require you to read hundreds upon hundreds of pages of non-specific information about every aspect of the patent process, this book is meant to be a guide that gives you answers to the most commonly-asked questions that we have encountered in our many years of patent practice.  This book will also teach you the fundamentals of drafting patent applications, give you relevant up-to-date information and even provide you with a template, in a standard patent application format, so that you can prepare the bulk of your patent application.  Based on our experiences, we believe that our book and template will give you the best, most cost-efficient patent application in the least amount of time possible.