Patent Prosecution
Working with patent counsel (yours or ours) PATENT SCIENGE will manage every aspect of the life cycle of your patent:
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Patentability and freedom to operate searching
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Application Drafting
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Filing of provisional, US utility, PCT and national phase applications
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Formal drawings
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Requesting examination
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Assignments and declarations
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Responding to office actions
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Claim amendments
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RCEs and appeals
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Issue fees
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Tracking important dates and documents
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Maintenance fees and annuities
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Evaluating and optimizing your portfolio
We take care of routine matters and streamline communication with you or your technology leaders, usually to just strategic decisions and responses that require your specialized technical expertise.
Patent Searching
Patent searching is usually done to gather information relative to patentability and freedom to operate. Patent searching can focus on the US or include other territories such as Europe. At PATENT SCIENGE we cannot offer opinions relative to patentability and freedom to operate, and there is no way to determine if a search is complete or if there are relevant filed but unpublished cases. We can however work with you to determine optimal search strategies, and share with you cases that appear to be relevant so you can draw your own conclusions.
We take you through our step by step process to optimize results:
1. We will execute a one way non-disclosure agreement (yours or ours) so you know your information is safe
2. We review your documents and discuss with you what parts of your work you believe are valuable inventions
3. We draft application for your review
4. We have outside IP counsel (yours or ours) review your application (not required but recommended for provisional filings)
5. We file a provisional patent application, securing your priority date in the US and world wide
Patent Applications
The United States is now "first to file". It is critical that inventors file their application as soon as possible, before others file
Portfolio Tracking
At PATENT SCIENGE we have developed an intuitive tool which puts your portfolio at your fingertips. Expiry, maintenance fee and international annuity due dates automatically calculated. Status, relevent dates and important documents can be seen at a glance. The reporting function allows patents from your entire portfolio to be selected by country, region, date range, status, etc. and sorted by chosen fields to make report generation easy and fast.
Annuities and Maintenance Fees
Annuities are often the largest expense in developing and maintaining your patent portfolio. Working with a third party annuity service provider, PATENT SCIENGE will manage the payment of annuities and maintenance fees in all countries, often saving you money.
In the United States, maintenance fees are due 3.5, 7.5, and 11.5 years after issuance. In most other countries, annuities are due annually on anniversary of filing, either after issuance or a few years after filing.
Portfolio Evaluation
It is important to constantly evaluate your filings as technology, strategic direction, and budgets evolve. PATENT SCIENGE will help you do this using a quantitative Pugh matrix approach. First we will help you determine a set of criteria, such as future cost, coverage of key technologies, importance of various countries, etc. that are important to you. Second, we will work with you to rate the importance of these criteria. Together, we will then rank each case against these criteria, resulting in an overall value rating for each case. These value ratings can then be used to to optimally choose which cases to continue prosecuting and maintaining.
