IP-Docs - electr

It's a New World for Patent Draftspeople

Over one million patents are processed worldwide each year- with an estimated 350,000 U.S. and 700,000 foreign- and the numbers continue to rise. 92 percent of the design process is graphically based, the other 8 percent is documenting it, and, in reference to patent illustration, a large proportion of the hours spent preparing a patent for submission involves the creation, manipulation and rework of engineering drawings to highly regulated patent illustration specifications. At present, the patent application process involves the inclusion of both very specific drawings-which must be hand-drawn or computer generated by skilled patent illustrators- and specific page (and, eventually, electronic raster) formatting. Illustrators trained in the production of patent drawings are in short supply and high demand and face an ever-increasing number of patent applications, each requiring multiple drawings.

We believe the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's- and increasingly the world’s- goal of electronically receiving intellectual property applications will be the catalyst behind a global change in how these applications are prepared. Anticipating the need for an electronic, paperless and time saving solution to ease the growing pains of the intellectual property community, we developed IP-Docs, Intellectual Property Documentation Organization and Control System. IP-Docs is the comprehensive, economical illustration formatting and automation tool for anyone seeking to protect and develop her valuable ideas.

The creation and reworking of an application from illustrator to attorney to patent office takes many valuable hours and, since many transactions involve hard copies, creates a sizable paper trail. These intensive and necessary steps in the evolution of any marketable product can chalk up hundreds of unnecessary hours and thousands of dollars before even reaching the patent and manufacture stages. Currently, there exists no specialized software to produce patent drawings. Multiple high-end graphics programs are required to design, manipulate, develop and output the different aspects of a single product from ideation through to manufacture. Any of these numerous design software programs can cost up to tens of thousands of dollars, and each performs only a limited, specific function in the design-patent-manufacture process.

The intellectual property industry is increasingly unable to produce and process patents at the rate that they are generated, resulting in an application backlog of many months. This growing industry needs improved, comprehensive, cost-efficient and paperless information sharing, illustrating and editing solutions. With the strong urging of the USPTO to move to a fully electronic intellectual property submission and information sharing process, more industry professionals are taking advantage of the cost, time and paper savings inherent in electronic communication.

Patent-drawing specific solutions have not emerged until now. Our collective 50+ years of experience and observation as industrial designers and patent illustrators allowed us to conceive an answer to ease the growing pains of this expanding industry. The assembly of an experienced team- NBKJ, LLC- allowed us to develop the timesaving, all-electronic, paperless solution that the intellectual property industry needs.

IP-Docs, (Intellectual Property Documentation Organization and Control System), is a comprehensive software program that combines, streamlines and, in many cases automates, the normally time-intensive elements of product protection. Production and manipulation of patent drawings; text editing and formatting; foreign reformatting; and copyright and trademark drawing and editing capabilities are all included in our single, integrated software package. IP-Docs is an AutoCAD plug-in with an Inventor-compatible version to follow. We chose to build our application on top of Autodesk, the creators of AutoCAD, because there are over 4 million registered users.

When using our auto-interactive illustration, automation and formatting software, an applicant (an individual, corporation or attorney) is able to create 2D projections of any flat or turned isometric, axonometric or perspective view of the imported 3D engineering source file. Using these projections as the basis for the drawings of different views required by the USPTO an applicant can prepare and edit those drawings, follow drawing regulations specific by country, add hot-linked numbering and lead lines to corresponding text and numerals in a text editing program. These can then be directly submitted as fully editable electronic files to the USPTO through their Electronic Filing System (EFS). The use of one electronic file throughout the product protection process maximizes security for your ideas and guarantees the accuracy of the finished product. This eliminates the creep of error into these legal documents and illustration due to “artistic” interpretation.

All industries and technologies are involved in the process of product protection from ideation through manufacture. Our goal with IP-Docs is to provide patent drawing solutions to all applicants. IP-Docs offers the means- a text and graphic editor- to process patent applications more efficiently by reducing interaction and production time and eliminating paper trails from the design source through the patent office, and the means to leverage the return on investment made in the creation of 3D solid modeling geometry. We provide the means to generate accurate projections from a 3D model to auto-format for patent, trademark and copyright requirements.

A most beneficial, economical and time-saving feature of IP-Docs’ is its handling of foreign patent filings. After patent illustrations are prepared to U.S. specifications, the illustrations must be translated and considerably reworked and the documents reformatted to the guidelines of foreign countries. As each country has its own set of specifications, this process is always costly and time-consuming. With IP-Docs, the original source drawing is handled in such a way that with keystrokes- rather than hours- the entire illustrated patent application can be reformatted, with the proper shading and views required by each country, for no extra cost and in much less time.

On average, by hand, one 2D projected view, of average complexity, takes 4 hours to complete, using IP-Docs, the identical end result is achieved in a matter of less than 30 minutes. Our program includes illustrated part to database linking that radically reduces mis-numbering and related tedious rework. Text translation, as well as part-to-database-to-documentation will be available in later versions of IP-Docs.

IP-Docs is a tool that integrates all aspects of the illustration process and sets a new industry standard for all USPTO application creation and submission by facilitating improved production processes and reducing costs in a rapidly growing market. The implementation of such an inclusive intellectual property protection tool targeting all industries and all technologies engaged in the patent, trademark and copyright application processes, will generate healthy industry savings, while also stimulating creativity by making the patent drawing production process more accessible to the individual, attorney, patent office and the industry at large.

Additionally, since qualified patent illustrators are in such short supply, education about the industry and access to up-to-date USPTO specifications are essential right now. To this end we include free access to on-demand, online, e-learning with the purchase of each copy of the product. [Conventional classroom materials are of course available from us to AutoDesk Certified Training Centers and colleges that teach Computer Aided Design and Drafting classes.]

We are here to serve the industry; as such we provide online access to the specifications for each country we have researched. It is our intention to make them complete and to keep them 100 percent up-to-date. We do this so we can provide current updates to every registered user of our software. We maintain an on-line library of industry standard symbols, hatch patterns, and surface shaders for our registered users. We additionally maintain a secure database showing the test results of the level of patent knowledge achieved for each user who takes our online courses, so they can share them with employers or clients.

We are MIL, ANSI and patent-certified, and our team includes an intellectual property attorney and an educator and published author of high-level 3D documentation literature for Autodesk 3D software. We are AutoDesk Developer Network members and our product is ADN registered.

Software to make your work easier, and the job more enjoyable, is our only product.

Key Links: - What is a patent? - What can be patented?