Description:
Network software which provides a secure environment for obtaining the information from inventors that is necessary for the authoring and prosecution of high-quality patent applications. The software facilitates communication over the Internet and/or corporate intranets among inventors, intellectual-property administrators (technology managers), and patent attorneys.
Potential Competitive Advantages:
This software has a number of advantages over prior art systems. 1) Improved quality of applications, reducing the duration of pendency and associated uncertainty regarding the scope of an inventor's claims. 2) Facilitates the authoring of disclosures. 3) Provides motivation and detailed legal guidance on content and format requirements to the user. 4) Facilitates authoring of the specification of patent applications to be input to the Electronic Applications System under development. 5) Evaluates a disclosed invention for patentability and marketability. 6) Reorganizes disclosure information for output in the format required by patent offices.
Examples of Applications and Markets:
Automatically converts invention disclosures into U.S., international [Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT)] and foreign [European Patent Office (EPO) and Japanese Patent Office (JPO)] draft patent applications that can be edited by a patent attorney or patent agent. It also provides expert systems for conducting preliminary assessments of patentability (under US, PCT, EPO and/or JPO rules), as well as commercial potential. The expert systems are designed to provide a patent attorney with the information he or she will need to conduct detailed assessments. They are also designed to raise the consciousness of inventors about how their actions can affect patentability, inventorship, and commercial-potential determinations.
Status:
NIGMS Phase I SBIR project completed. NHLBI SBIR Phase II project in progress. Commercial partners being actively solicited.
Patents:
"Expert Support System for Authoring Invention Disclosures," U.S. Patent Application 08/401,141.
Literature Available:
Phase I final report-- Expert System for Recombinant DNA Invention Disclosure, (research sponsored by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services), October 1994, pp. 90 plus appendices.