Obtaining a valuable, strong, defensible, successful software patent requires not just knowledge of patent law and computer technology, but also extensive experience in how to draft every section of a patent application to maximize the likelihood that it will be granted, the ability to enforce it against competitors, and its strength in withstanding challenges to its validity — all essential parts of a patent that provides true value to its owner, whether in a license, acquisition, litigation, or by deterring competition.

Although the anatomy of every patent consists of the same basic “body parts” — such as the Background, Summary, Detailed Description, and Claims — there is a difference between a patent that has the body of a couch potato and one that has the physique of an Olympic athlete. Which would you want your patent to have?

Here’s just a few things that we do at Blueshift IP to tone the muscles of the software patents that we write for our clients:

• Background: Here, leaner tends to be better. Statements made in the Background section can be used against you by a patent examiner or in court, as admissions that what you describe was already well-known (in the “prior art”) before your invention. We keep Background sections short and sweet to avoid this pitfall.
• Summary: We use this as the attractive face of the patent application, to highlight key features of the invention for a variety of audiences, including patent examiners, investors, acquirers, and juries.
• Detailed Description: Think of this as both the skeleton and muscles of the patent, providing both the structural support and the interconnections among all of the pieces of the invention.  Here, providing multiple layers of detail in the technical description of the invention is critical to obtaining legal protection that covers both the actual products/services you are selling but variations on them, including alternatives that your competitors might come up with.
• Claims. The claims are like the brain, or perhaps even the mind, of the patent, capturing the essence of the invention, by defining the features that distinguish it from all other inventions.  Writing claims, which must adhere to very strict legal rules and be crafted to make it as difficult as possible for competitors to compete with you without infringing your patent rights, is an art in itself.  And writing successful software patent claims requires expertise in both patent law and computer science.

In addition to making sure that every part of a patent’s anatomy is finely-tuned to its individual purpose, all of the parts must interconnect and support each other, just as your body’s respiratory, nervous, circulatory, and other systems must cooperate if you are to be healthy.  At Blueshift IP we take pride in creating software patents whose anatomy consists of such vibrant individual parts, working together in sync to maximize the resulting value to our clients.

Contact us today to file software patents for you with strong and healthy bodies!