Patenting for Inventors

Continuation-in-Part applications are useful for when you have some additional features you want to get patent protection for, but you didn't include them in your original patent application.

This episode goes over the specific type of continuing application called a continuation application. Use continuation applications to broaden your patent protection from your original application, keep it pending to cover possible future design-arounds, or cover aspects of your invention that you didn't claim in your original application.

Learn what divisional patent applications are and when you should file one. Divisional patent applications are useful when the patent examiner has previously required you to split up your originally filed application because you claimed too many inventions. Instead of losing out on one of your inventions, you can file a divisional patent application.

If you are considering filing patent applications related to an application that you already filed, then you might be interested in a continuing patent application. There are different types and you should know the differences. In this episode I do a general overview of the different types of continuing applications: divisionals, continuations, continuation-in-parts, reissues, and continued prosecution applications (CPAs).

Learn how to respond to an election of species requirement from the patent office. An examiner will not examine your invention if you are claiming too many variations of the same thing. In this episode learn how to respond to such a requirement.

Learn what a patent application restriction requirement is. A patent application is only allowed to have one invention, so what are you to do if the examiner says that your patent application actually contains more than one invention. You'll have to file a response to the restriction requirement and in this episode I go through how to do that.

Learn how to amend the patent application specification and the requirements of what to do if you have to do a substitute specification and how to mark up your application with strikethroughs, underlines, and double brackets.

In this episode I go through how to amend patent drawings.

In this episode I go through the mechanics of how to mark up any claims that you have amended. Know how to properly use underlining, strikethroughs, and double brackets to tell the examiner what exactly has changed and what has remained the same since the last set of claims.

When you amend claims, you can't just send a new set of claims to the patent examiner and ask for a reconsideration, you have to identify and mark up your claims in a specific way. In this episode I discuss how to identify claims that have undergone some kind of change from the original claims.