Patent Development

Inventors’ ideas don’t simply put themselves on paper and result in patents. Every step, from capturing the initial idea, determining how the idea should be best claimed and described, supporting the disclosure, determining a filing strategy, and filing the patent application, requires careful attention to detail and strategic planning. TPL works with your internal inventors to develop the right set of patent applications, insuring that they are comprehensive yet cost-effective.

Invention Mining

TPL can rapidly and efficiently mine and document ideas from not only engineers and researchers, but also from product managers, members of the sales force, and executives. TPL organizes and conducts invention summits and brainstorming sessions in which engineers, technologists, marketing personnel, and executives all contribute their ideas and visions of the future. The results of such sessions are numerous disclosures and potential inventions that TPL documents and organizes for subsequent processing.

Invention Disclosure Processing

When an organization has been appropriately incentivized and encouraged to invent, either through a traditional invention disclosure program or through brainstorming sessions, the result can be an overwhelming number of disclosures. TPL can process and rate those disclosures, determining how to best group ideas and evaluating which are likely to be considered the most novel and result in broad and potentially valuable patent claims. Through its invention disclosure management, TPL will help you create a coherent and comprehensive strategy for filing patents.

Prior Art Searching

Is the idea truly novel? Prior art searching, including searching of patent databases, academic and trade literature, and existing products, is an art. TPL’s vast experience in searching allows us to perform the appropriate searches to determine if proposed ideas are likely to be considered “new” by the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO).

Patent Application Generation

TPL’s patent agents and attorneys develop patent claims and corresponding specifications to best claim the proposed ideas. TPL creates a filing strategy which frequently allows a single specification to support multiple sets of claims, thus reducing patent development costs and providing maximum coverage of an inventive concept.