Patent Drafting
What it is
Preparing an application and filing it with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Provisional applications
A provisional application is a placeholder that establishes a date. It is never examined, it does not become a patent on its own, and it expires twelve months after filing. What it buys you is a claim to that date for everything that the provisional application describes, and the ability to say patent pending while you use the year.
Potential downside. While a provisional application give you a filing date, that filing date only applies to the inventions disclosed in the provisional application. Adding new inventions after the fact typically requires filing additional applications.
Who it suits. People who need a date now and clarity later: a disclosure or demonstration is imminent, an investor conversation is scheduled, a product is shipping, or the invention is still developing and another year of data will sharpen what is worth claiming.
Is there a better alternative? Yes. If you already understand the scope of protection for which you would like to apply then a utility application with claims is a more powerful and significant filing.
What is included. A provisional application prepared and filed with the patent office, up to five formal drawings, and three rounds of revision on the draft provided for your review. A provisional does not require any claims to be included. We offer you the opportunity to include one independent claim with the provisional application included in the price of drafting; at your discretion.
Non-provisional utility applications
The real thing: the application the patent office actually examines, and the one that can become a granted patent. We offer three tiers of utility application drafting with published pricing plus a custom option.
All three published levels deliver the same number of claims, pages, and drawings by default:
- 20 claims — 3 independent claims and 17 dependent claims. 20 is the maximum number of claims the USPTO permits to be filed before it starts charging extra per claim;
- Up to five formal drawings; and
- Three rounds of revision on the draft we send you for review.
Additional claims and drawings are available at additional rates.
What separates the levels is how much of the drafting process is guided by an experienced attorney and the information gathered to draft the application:
| Level | Prior art search | Attorney sets the claims before drafting the specification | Attorney involved in drafting the application |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | — | — | Yes |
| Standard | Yes | — | Yes |
| Enhanced | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Every application, at every level, is guided by an experienced IP attorney. A higher tier buys earlier attorney involvement and guidance which allows our clients to submit a more focused patent application.
Basic Utility Package
The application is drafted and reviewed by an attorney, without a prior art search.
See How It Works for the process and Pricing for the fee.
Standard Utility Package
Adds a prior art search, run before drafting begins, so its findings shape how the application is written. See the note about the Prior Art search to learn more.
See How It Works for the process and Pricing for the fee.
Enhanced Utility Package
Includes a prior art search and adds an attorney review of the claims before the rest of the application is written around them, so the description is built to support the claims as the attorney revised them rather than as first drafted. See the note about the Prior Art search to learn more.
See How It Works for the process and Pricing for the fee.
Custom Utility Package
For matters with specific requirements. These can be complex patent applications or applications where the client has specific goals and challenges. We work on pricing designed to fit the projects.
What the search is, and what it is not
The searches in Standard and Enhanced are guided by the attorney, run with AI assistance, and part of producing your application. Their purpose is to provide information that can guide us in focusing your patent application.
Note that the prior art searches included in the Standard and Enhanced application packages are limited to USPTO published patents and patent applications. These searches do not include industry and academic publications, foreign patent filings, prior art systems, or other types of prior art. It should also be noted that even the most extensive prior art searches frequently miss significant prior art and should not be used as a metric of all available prior art.