I associate the word
"elegant" with solutions to problems that are well-defined. With that
point of view, the word does not even apply to a patent application. That is,
"elegance" is not even a goal when preparing a patent application.
Basically, writing a
patent application is like creating software, within a budget (explicitly
stated or implicit) that is going to be released into the wild for maybe 20
years, with no opportunity to fix it after it has been released.
Actually, writing a patent application is
a little more difficult than that. It's more like creating the software and
also writing a description of it. No matter what the software functionally can
do, it is limited by its description, so you want to make the description as
broad as possible. On the other hand, the description can be attacked if it
says the software does more than it actually is capable of doing, so you don't
want to make the description too broad.
One of the first tasks
is to try to anticipate all the problems that might arise over the next 20
years or so, which is already very challenging. Then, of course, you have to
try to address those problems as best you can.
Therefore, it is much
more important to make a patent application as strong and robust as possible,
given the limited resources available, than it is to make it elegant.
That said, as with
pretty much any job, it is possible to come up with clever or even
out-of-the-box solutions to certain sub-problems within the overall job.
However, those solutions, while satisfying to the patent attorney, are almost
always invisible to others.
I have had litigators
who were enforcing patents I drafted and prosecuted, compliment me on the
quality of the patent application, but it is rare that anyone else would have
sufficient expertise and also an opportunity to examine a patent application
closely enough to notice how good, or bad, it is.
ANT Lawyers - A Law firm in Vietnam is supported by a team of experienced patent,
trademark, design attorneys with qualification and skills handling full range
of legal services relating to intellectual
property rights in Vietnam. We
have specialized in the preparation and registration of patents, trademarks and
designs for our clients.
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