Patent Claim Analysis

Patent claim analysis is particularly important for determining the scope of patent protection. It is also necessary in performing validity and infringement (or "clearance" or "right-to-use", etc.) searches.

The best way to visualize the elements of a claim is to convert the rather bland claim text into a visually modified script, using various fonts, font and background colors, and text modifiers, such as using bold, italic, and underline.

The text of the claim can be obtain by scanning the claims of the documents (or obtained directly for US Patents and Published Applications from the uspto.gov Patent Search webpage using copy-and-paste). If the text is pasted into MS Word, the text can be modified using the "Find All" feature to locate all occurrences of a claim element in the claim recitations. Then the highlighted elements can be modified, e.g., bu changing the font color to red, or to both red and bold, etc.

This is a useful technique for more easily locating elements throughout the claim recitations.

The modified claim recitations can be printed using a color printer to scan to "character" of the claims, e.g., locating such essential words and phrases as "such as ", "whereby", "wherein", and "in order to".

Francis "Fran" Lorin
siberkhem.com