How to write claims?
Go Back 
How to write claims? Video Transcript
In this section, we are going to be writing claims. Claims are the legal aspects of this whole exercise and that is to define what your monopoly right is. Claims are limitations. The best claims are no words at all. We cannot use claims like that, that will be claiming in the whole universe. We are trying to put the minimum number of words, so that we define the boundaries of what your invention actually is. What are the limitations that someone would have to do to potentially infringe your invention? What we are trying to do is look at our primary elements and our primary elements are going to be the central things that we are going to be claiming, or put them in independent form as you will see examples of, in which there are single sentences that do not depend on anything else and do not incorporate the limitation of another claim, which define the boundaries of what your invention is. Sometimes, you have got to break down the thought process. If you have one idea, you need to think what is the way that someone needs to achieve that idea, or how is that idea actually work, or how is that idea actually built, with that inventive concept that was in my primary element? How is that actually going to function and how is it going to be built? Break down the steps into sub-steps. The idea is to write three or four clauses that will expand that concept in words to cover the boundaries of your invention in the independent claims. In independent claims, you are going to protect your central inventive concept. The dependent claims are going to be the things from your secondary elements and your substitute elements that might be possible ways of your invention working. There is a procedural aspect to invent the claim drafting that is substantive. Procedurally, you have to follow a bunch of rules. Each claim is a single sentence, starts with a capital, ends with a period. Each clause is separated by semicolons. There are generally three kinds of claims that most people write. They are method claims, and there is apparatus claim which can cover a physical article, and there are system claims that are multiple physical apparatus working together. What we are trying to do write also claims of varying scope. When we look at the substantive side of things, we want to write claims at varying scopes – some that are broad, some that are narrow, some that are very narrow. With basic USPTO filing fee, you get 20 claims total, three of which are independent, 17 of which are dependent claims. It is an art to write claims. This is what most patent attorneys get paid to do, but if you are doing an invention yourself you can do a good job too. You really need to study on the examples that we provided and also make sure that you write distinctly and very clearly around your point of novelty. You have to use antecedent basis in claim drafting, meaning that the first time you introduce something you have to start with an ‘a'. When you follow up with the same thing, you have to use ‘the' so that it is very clear to the reader and the examiner what is being referred to where. So our main goal for the claim is to translate our primary elements from the embodiment list we made into independent claims and take our secondary elements and substitute elements and make those dependent claims and write three independent claims with varying scope. Also think about the potential infringer. Who is going to be practicing your invention? Claims are written from the perspective of someone who is going to infringe your idea, who is going to practice it, not just you but someone else that is going to be doing it. So, look at it from their perspective. Claim should be written from the same perspective as a potential infringer. Every element needs to be written from that same perspective so that one party practicing the invention in one country is infringing each and every limitation of the claim. That is the general guidelines of claim drafting and you can have the procedure reviewed if you like and good luck.