Video Transcript

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Hey there, I’m Gary Schuster. Welcome to Innovation Cafe. Today I want to talk with you about a really weird thing that I think you should put in every patent application you file: you should explain in the body of the patent itself why it’s such a good invention, why people might want to license it, and how it might be used to improve people’s lives.

I know it sounds weird, because that’s the kind of thing that if you’re using a patent broker, you would expect them to get on the phone with a potential licensee and explain it. But here’s why you want to include it: the patent is going to stand alone as a document. Once you get through the doors of a big company that might want to buy your license, that patent is not going to go with your patent broker from office to office. Instead, it’s the patent that’s going to be passed around, maybe with a little bit of a summary.

So if you include language in the patent explaining why people want it, what it can do for humanity, what it can do for their company specifically — it really helps sell the patent. And it helps you avoid a fairly significant problem: as the inventor of patented technology, you can really damage your issued patent by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person.

Let’s imagine I’m sitting in a deposition as the inventor, and there’s a lawyer across from me taking testimony. Let’s say I’ve got a design patent on the gorilla mug — I don’t, but let’s say I do. They might ask, “Tell me the story about how you came up with it.” If I were to say something like, “Well, in the environment I was operating in, it was a pretty obvious thing. Anyone could have come up with it. I just got lucky — I thought of it first.” Wow. I have just seriously harmed that patent.

You can also characterize the claims in a way that’s really not helpful. Sometimes this happens during prosecution of the patent, where you tell the patent examiner, “Yeah, I know you rejected me because you think the claim covers X, but it doesn’t cover X.” Then you’re going to be prohibited later from saying it does cover X, because you expressly disclaimed it.

You can do that in a conversation too. If you’re doing an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show and they’re running video, and you say, “The cool thing about this patent is it covers this product,” and it turns out that product was invented and in public use prior to the date you filed — you have probably just invalidated your patent.

Including marketing language inside the body of the patent itself takes a lot of the heat off of you as an inventor to try to market it, puff it up, sell it, get people excited about it — because the patent application itself can do that.

So that’s my really quick tip: include language in the patent that explains why it’s cool and why people want it. This has been Innovation Cafe. Stay creative, because every human is creative — invent your world.