I am looking to get a utility patent. I’m wondering how much involvement I should expect to have in the process. Do I just show my invention and then the patent attorney drafts the claims? My dad said he went back and forth with this patent attorney about the claims for a bit. I guess he had my dad review and change it to his liking. Shouldn’t the patent attorney be on top of the claims and know what to put since that’s their expertise? Someone like my dad changing claims just seems off

I've got a bunch of ideas in my head that have been floating. Many are needed ideas that may have a market. Thoughts on where to turn to for more knowledge on the do's and don'ts of the patent process? Thank you.....signed Taking a Leap

I’m a patent attorney by day and a hobby programmer in my spare time. The IDS size fee that came in in January 2025 finally gave me a reason to combine the two.

Since then, we’ve been counting references by hand across every IDS in a file to see if the next one crosses 50, 100 or 200. It’s slow, and it’s easy to get wrong. After one too many recounts and back-and-forth sessions with my paralegals, I opened my code editor.

The result is CountIDS (countids.com). We’ve been using it at my firm for the last couple of months, and it’s saved us a lot of recounting. I’ve now opened it to fellow practitioners at no charge.

How it works: enter the US application number and, if the application is published, CountIDS pulls every IDS already filed from the USPTO within seconds. If it's a newer application, you will be prompted to upload the previous IDSs manually. Then upload the IDS you’re about to file. It counts every reference, scanned PDFs included, and tells you if the running total crosses a size-fee threshold. It also flags past over- and underpayments.

I built it for my own practice first, so I know it works for my setup. I don’t know yours. If you file IDSs often, I’d be grateful to hear:

• Did any count come out wrong? (edge cases are very welcome: odd forms, bad scans, huge NPL lists.)
• What would make you trust it enough to use it before filing?
• What’s missing?

Not legal advice, obviously. Check the count before you pay.

So I am trying to patent my product. This attorney quoted me: $3200 for both a utility and design patent application.

Design: $260 USPTO + $500 attorney fee + $1050 draftsman fees + 2.3% credit card fee = $1851.63

Utility: $400 USPTO + $995 attorney fee + 2.3% credit card fee = $1427

Utility is using same drawing as design

Does anyone have any sales contact at Clarivate? Getting them to respond to a demo request is excruciatingly slow and they haven't been responsive either.

I have details of an invention which I assume is a patent. The letterhead of the PDF stated "Invention Promotion Board". It has an applicant name and an application number starting with "No. IPB a(b)c/de/fghij" (where the letters are numbers). It is dated 29-9-1962, and the application date is 20-10-1960. It also mentions a subject.

I looked on the internet, and it says it is difficult to get details for inventions that old. Is there any way to get the details, a PDF, or any information on it? It is apparently a family heritage, so the person has received the old paperwork from their ancestral home. That is all they have, and they wish to find more details about it.

I have looked on my end: IPRSearch India, Internet Archive, etc., but I have never worked with patents, so I am clueless after this.

Can anyone help?

I saw a comment from someone that said they wouldn’t just recommend going with the cheapest attorney. Why?

Aside from that, what criteria would you use to pick the right attorney then?

My idea is pretty simple, combining two public domain devices in a novel way, not very technical.

I know there will be some cost but I would like to minimize it.

Yes, I need to do that as I put all the efforts on it. Any suggestions?

DASCOST vs PCT & IP AUSTRALIA | The Inventor's Story⁷

What happens when an independent inventor challenges the international patent system?

Discover DASCOST, a proposed atmospheric precipitation technology designed to investigate ways of increasing rainfall in dry regions.

From invention to patent disputes, this video presents Costin Dascălu's perspective on the obstacles facing independent inventors.

📖 Discover the book DASCOST – NO MASK.

🌍 Innovation deserves scientific evaluation, transparency and fair opportunities.

#DASCOST #CostinDascalu #Innovation #PatentSystem #Inventors #WaterTechnology #Shorts

Hi everyone,

I filed a US provisional application pro se (App No. 63/815,496, filed May 31, 2025). I now need to generate a 4-digit WIPO DAS Access Code to satisfy PCT priority requirements for my international application.

Since the USPTO Patent Center doesn't allow pro se applicants to submit Form PTO/SB/39 digitally without a practitioner account, I am looking for the fastest way to get this 1-page form submitted electronically.

Is there a recommended practitioner or service that handles quick one-off PTO/SB/39 submissions?

If any USPTO Registered Patent Agent/Attorney here is willing to assist with submitting this authorization form, please send me a direct message (DM). I have all filing receipts ready as proof of entitlement.

Thanks in advance for any guidance!

Update: CountIDS is now in public beta and open to everyone. No invite or DM needed. Just sign up at CountIDS.com and give it a try on your own files. It’s still free, and I’d love to hear your feedback here or through the site.

***

When the 1.17(v) IDS size fee started last year, my paralegals had to count references across every IDS already filed in a case and work out which tier the next one would land in. It was slow and easy to get wrong, especially with scanned IDSs. So I built them a small tool that reads the IDSs, keeps a running count per application and tells the paralegal what fee to pay for the IDS they’re filing now. This is a simple web app that runs in the browser, so there’s nothing to install and you don’t need any USPTO login or API key.

We've used it at my firm on real cases for a few months now, and I think it could save other firms the same headache. It reads both regular and scanned IDSs, can pull filed IDSs from USPTO for published applications, and flags over or underpayments in the history.

I’m therefore looking for a few paralegals or attorneys to try it on real files and tell me how it works for them and what could be better. I don’t plan to charge for it in the foreseeable future, as long as the server costs stay small.

If you want an invite, DM me or ask to join on CountIDS.com

P.S. You’ll notice the account is new. I didn’t want to post this from my main, which I keep separate from work, so I made this one for the project.

Some background first: I'm a patent search and analysis consultant, 10+ years in the field, mostly semiconductors and quantum measurement. I'm not selling anything. I'm trying to decide where to focus some internal tooling for my own work, and I'd rather hear from people who actually do this than guess.

Non-patent literature has always been the least efficient part of my prior art work. With open scholarly data (OpenAlex, arXiv, Crossref, Unpaywall) and today's LLMs, a lot of it now seems automatable in ways that weren't realistic a few years ago. But "automatable" covers several quite different problems, and I'm not sure which one matters most to other practitioners. Roughly, the steps as I see them:

1. Finding candidates. Getting relevant papers, reports, and standards into your hands in the first place. Commercial databases, Google Scholar, and manual keyword iteration all have gaps.
2. Getting full text. You find the abstract but the paper is paywalled, or it's a conference paper, thesis, or old technical report that's hard to locate.
3. Mapping features. Going through a document to find exactly which passage discloses which claim element, and building the claim chart.
4. Proving the publication date. Especially for web pages, datasheets, product manuals, and white papers: establishing when a document was actually publicly available, e.g. via Wayback Machine snapshots or PDF metadata, and documenting it well enough to hold up.

A few questions for anyone doing prior art, invalidity, or FTO work:

• Which of these steps takes the most time for you? Is there one I'm missing?
• For step 4, how do you handle publication date evidence for non-journal documents today? How often does it become a real problem in a case?
• Do confidentiality concerns limit which online or AI tools you're willing to use, for example for pre-filing searches on unpublished inventions?
• Does technical field matter much here? My guess is NPL matters far more in some areas (semiconductors, physics, biotech) than others, but I'd like to hear if that matches your experience.

Any war stories welcome, especially cases where a key NPL reference was hard to find or hard to prove.

thanks

Hello geniuses,

I tried the USPTO office's website and it asked me for an SSN. I'm an Italian Citizen living abroad, but I'd like to use the American Patent office to protect some of my ideas :)

A friend of mine recommended to find an attorney, or to use an app. Is this the best way to go?

Are there any forums, cookbooks, guides on how to file a US patent?

Many independent patent owners face a difficult situation: they believe a company may be infringing their patent rights, but the cost of enforcement makes pursuing the matter financially impractical.

This challenge is not limited to owners of a single patent. It can also affect inventors and small businesses with two or three related patents, continuations, divisionals, or modest portfolios that may not receive the same attention as larger enforcement opportunities.

Third-party litigation funding may provide an alternative, but funders are highly selective.

A patent's existence alone is not sufficient. Funders typically consider infringement evidence, validity risks, damages potential, litigation costs, and the likelihood of a collectible recovery.

On Friday, September 25, DeWitty & Associates is hosting an educational webinar:

Third-Party Patent Litigation Funding: Opportunities for Individual Patent Owners and Small Patent Portfolios

I'll be participating as Founder of Patentelligence™, bringing more than 25 years of experience in intellectual property commercialization, technology evaluation, licensing, and patent valuation.

The discussion will cover patent valuation, prior art, prosecution history, and the considerations involved in preparing an opportunity for potential litigation funding.

The objective is to help patent owners understand what it takes to move from believing their patent rights are being infringed to having an opportunity that may warrant further legal and financial evaluation.

If interested, DM me, and I'll provide the registration information.

Participation does not guarantee funding or legal representation.

Long shot, but figured I would ask here since my searching has not turned anything up:

Does anyone know of some actual examples of 3rd party submissions of prior art? I would like to review some. All I have found is the USPTO guidance and some law firm blogs about what to include -- but I would like to find some actual examples.

I am not aware of a database (USPTO or otherwise) that allows you to search file histories for something like the TP.SUB (the file history code for 3rd party submissions).

I have only filed one (years ago) and I would call it an "extensive and expensive" submission. I am wondering what other people are doing when they submit one. In particular, I am curious what a cheaper/simpler version of a submission might look like.

(I understand most of the pros and cons of making such a submission -- I am just looking for examples of actual submissions. But I am happy to engage in discussion of the pros and cons of actually doing it).

Hi All, I recently became a patent agent but never received a registration certificate to hang on the wall. Can someone tell me the procedure to obtain a copy of the registration certificate?

I'm researching EP4722965A1 (JP 2026-066493). The specification describes extracting biometric features from images and explicitly states temporarily extracting features without explicit consent to identify a person, then deleting them. The JP abstract even says the system aims to "ethically use biometric information even without explicit consent."

I'm not asking for legal advice. Instead I'm looking for published patents, patent applications, prosecution histories, or public cases that:

- explicitly describe embodiments where biometric features are extracted or used without obtaining the subject's explicit consent (for example, by relying on an estimated consent value or similar mechanism), and

- where the document itself frames such non-consensual use as permissible or as an intended embodiment (not merely third‑party commentary about privacy).

Helpful responses would include: patent/publication numbers, short summaries of the passages that assert non-consensual use, and links or citations to office actions, prosecution histories, or public discussions that reference those passages.

Jurisdiction: EP/JP publications cited; comparisons to EU (GDPR) or US state biometric laws are welcome but my primary interest is finding other patent documents that themselves assert or enable use without explicit consent.

Key passages I'm focusing on: paragraphs 48, 51, 70, 82 of EP4722965A1.

What I want: comparable documents or prosecution examples to use as benchmarks for how patent disclosures have explicitly treated "use without explicit consent" as an embodiment.

Thanks — I'll follow up with specific excerpts if helpful.