Or… you’re just reading one of eighty<\/a> hojillion<\/a> Slashdot<\/a> stories<\/a> that use the title of the patent to write a “guess what obvious thing got patented” story, but you’re smart enough to know that the title isn’t actually the invention, and are curious what the real dirt’s about.<\/p>\n It can take hours or days to fully evaluate a patent.\u00a0 When time’s short, here’s the quick and dirty way to figure out what the patent covers, usually in under a minute.<\/p>\n The title of the patent can be just about as general as the author wants; for example, here is the the guy who patented the Tool<\/a>.\u00a0 It often describes the thing being improved on – not the new invention.\u00a0 A patent titled “Virtual Desktop Manager<\/a>” does not actually patent virtual desktops; it covers a particular set of features of a specific virtual desktop management implementation.<\/p>\n In other fields, the abstract is your best friend: a short, direct summary of the major points of a paper.\u00a0 Patent abstracts are at best meandering and hard to read, and at worst deliberately misleading (so you think you’re in the clear, do whatever you planned to do, and then get sued anyway because the abstract has no bearing on the enforceability of the patent).<\/p>\n Now we’re getting to the meat of the patent!\u00a0 And also skipping it.\u00a0 You don’t care about the background, or the field. You don’t much care about the related art.\u00a0 The brief summary of the invention doesn’t tell you what’s important; the description of the drawings is generally incomprehensible (unless it’s Edward L.). And the detailed description will send you catapulting in to catalepsy, while simultaneously not separating what’s actually novel and invented from the stuff that everyone knows already.<\/p>\n The claims are the only part of the patent that have any actual legal enforceability.\u00a0 While they’re still a pain to read, they’re forced to be one sentence so at least they’re relatively short (modulo the occasional run-on sentences half a page long).\u00a0 They can be wicked difficult to parse in detail, but a skim will get you pointed in the right direction. This page also offers a decent primer<\/a>.<\/p>\n Any claim that starts with “The _____ of claim _____” is essentially a refinement or detail with narrower scope than the parent claim – if you infringe the baby, you’ll infringe the daddy too.\u00a0 Skipadoodle.<\/p>\n Getting sucked in to a patent dispute is no good for any entrepreneur.\u00a0 By the time it’s done, you may be able to recite 40 pages of patenteese by memory, and have learned your Markush from your Jeppson.\u00a0 But if all you need is a quick summary, just cut directly to the independent claims.\u00a0 You’ll be done in a minute.<\/p>\nStep 1: Skip the title<\/h2>\n
Step 2: Skip the drawings<\/h2>\n
![\"Edward](\"http:\/\/www.danshapiro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/Edward-Van-Halen-Patent.png\")
<\/a>Patent drawings are mostly similar to high school notebook doodles except that they cost $5,000.\u00a0 They’re generally impossible to read and only indirectly have a bearing on the enforceability of the patent.\u00a0 The occasional exception exists: the incredibly edifying flowchart<\/a>. The drawings that look like a giant gummy bear<\/a> (because the invention is, actually, a giant gummy bear). \u00a0And sometimes… sometimes, a picture is simply worth a thousand words.<\/a>\u00a0Particularly when that picture depicts the inventor, one Mr. Edward L. Van Halen, demonstrating proper use of his invention.<\/p>\nStep 3: Skip the abstract<\/h2>\n
Step 4: Skip the specification<\/h2>\n
Step 5: Find the independent claims, and read them<\/em><\/h2>\n
Step 6: Back to skipping – toss the dependent claims<\/h2>\n
And that’s it!<\/h2>\n