Can I Do This Myself?
There are many self-help books available on how to draft a patent application. There are also legal services that provide some support for drafting and filing a patent application. It is your invention, and your decision on how to best pursue securing patent protection. Your approach is totally up to you. I have had experience with inventors who have either used a self-help book, or a legal drafting service.
I like to describe the patent process as a green pasture, rolling in the sunshine. There is a bubbling brook of cool, clear, artesian spring water flowing across the pasture. It all looks so inviting, the problem is that this beautiful field just so happens to be mined. It looks very inviting, and can be easy to cross…until things go wrong.
Sometimes clients file their own applications, and when confronted by a rejection, they seek help from a patent practitioner. It helps if you have your application on a use-able word file, such as Microsoft word, or word perfect. This allows the manipulation of the documents, and lessens work. Sometimes, the patent application is in a condition so as to not support any meaningful claims. Plainly put, sometimes the patent application has little value, if any at all. You have to remember, that the Patent Office will accept any documents. However, the Patent Office requires specific form and content before issuing a patent. Sometimes a patent application “cannot be fixed”, and further prosecution will, in high probability, be futile. In those occasions where the filed patent application is improperly structured, or, to put it quite frankly, poorly drafted, it is better to start all over again (unless there is an “on-sale bar issue, or “public use” issue, in which case the inventor is committed, and there are few options available). Sometimes the truth is uncomfortable, but in the long run, it is the least costly.