PATENT ATTORNEY – TEMPLATE SERIES, FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE

PATENT ATTORNEY – SAMPLE TEMPLATE DRAFT “FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE:”

[0001]         Examples of the present disclosure are related to techniques for [[insert high level of what the inventive concept]]. More particularly, embodiments may [[inset high level of inventive concept with novel features]].

PURPOSE:

MPEP section 608.01(C) discloses that the field of the invention part of a patent application, should include a statement paraphrasing the applicable US patent classification definitions of the subject matter of the claimed invention.

The main purpose of the field of disclosure portion of an application is for classification purposes at the USPTO. Classifiers working for the USPTO have a limited amount of time that they are able to determine what art unit the patent application should be used for. Using the field of the disclosure and the FIGURES in the patent application, the classifiers have around fifteen minutes to assign an application to an art unit.

As such, the field of the disclosure portion of the patent application is not so much directed towards patentability of an invention, but used for internal purposes.

PATENT ATTORNEY – COMMENTS:

1)   The field of the disclosure should be very broad and should not discuss any specific details of a patent application. As stated above, the field of the disclosure portion of the background is hardly ever used to provide support for claim language and/or define the scope of the claims. This is because the field of the disclosure is merely a sentence or two, whereas the body of the patent application should actually define the invention.

2)   Use the same language in the “field of the disclosure” statement as within the body of the application. For example, if your invention is directed towards a GPS device, if you write “Examples of the present disclosure are related to techniques for a ‘GPS device’.” Within the body of the application, call the “GPS device” a “GPS device” and not something like “a locating system,” “a location detecting apparatus,” etc.

3)   I like to use the language “FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE” instead of “FIELD OF THE INVENTION” merely because the language “of the invention” hints that there is only 1 invention in the disclosure. Whereas, I like the think that each application has several components which individually and/or collectively could be several inventions.