A patent or utility patent is a form of intellectual property that protects new and useful inventions. When granted on an invention, a patent is a property right that can be used to prevent others from making, using, selling, offering for sale, or otherwise importing the invention into the United States (or in whichever jurisdiction your patent is in force). Utility patents are in force for 20 years. Patents can also be granted on ornamentation or designs (design patents). Design patents are in force for 15 years.

Ideally, you would file a provisional patent application (secures a filing date and protects you for future patent filing opportunities) before you pitch your idea or speak with investors. Not doing so could constitute public disclosure and significantly reduce or eliminate your ability to obtain a patent. If the pitch occurs before the idea is ready for patenting (i.e., it can be described in detail, drawn, and/or made), then pitching before you file may be okay.

Legally, yes. But like with surgery, taxes, and home improvement, it can be a good idea to instead leverage the help of those who make it their focus. Patent application drafting is an art form where the draftsperson is simultaneously accounting for the details of the invention, desired breadth, relevant case law, litigation and PTAB future-proofing, prior art search results, conventional wisdom in the art, client desires, potential prosecution hurdles, and so much more. Filing with the patent office is its own dark art, especially when navigating USPTO practice and proceedings. In our experience, Client drafts and filings usually end up costing the Client more to fix in the long term and result in devalued portfolios. The better practice is to work closely with a practitioner to ensure the claims and patent application cover what you need them to, and prosecution evolves in an advantageous way – leaving the liability and procedural headaches to the professionals!

For invention ideation and building out an invention disclosure form, using “no data retention” and “no training on your data” AI models is the perfect use case for AI. The key is to distill the AI-based iteration into a succinct, few-page invention disclosure that does not bury the lede and keeps the actual invention front and center. Providing a practitioner with volumes of chat threads in which your invention is buried will only cost you time and money as the practitioner pours through innumerable non-essential details to find the nugget.

For drafting patent applications, this is a hard no. Even in the hands of very capable and technical practitioners, working with AI to draft patent applications is a skill that requires section-by-section drafting, significant oversight, detailed prompt generation, and extensive review. Your time is best spent developing the best invention disclosure, having a detailed conversation with your practitioner, and reviewing the draft(s) extensively to ensure accuracy and coverage of your invention.

Yes. Office Actions are extremely common in most patent applications. If you don’t receive an office action (the case moves straight to allowance), maybe you didn’t ask for enough breadth in the claims 🙂 Responding to office actions is an art form that should not be delegated to AI. Preparing office action responses is a delicate balance of addressing each and every rejection, while maintaining coverage of the product or competitor with the claims and not putting too much on the record with the arguments, which could harm future self in litigation, licensing, or other administrative or judicial proceedings.