Patent It Yourself - PDF Archive

ChaPter 8 | How to DRAFT the SPECIFICATION and INITIAL DRAWINGS | 191
application. In other words, you’ll build from these as you
write your specification and claims.
The main reason I discuss sketches at this point is
that you have to do your sketches prior to drafting the
specification, as well as the other parts of the application.
You don’t have to worry about planning any layout of your
figures on the drawing sheets, or the size of the figures—yet.
This will be covered in detail in Chapter 10. For now, merely
complete a set of sketches showing all of the aspects of your
invention without worrying about size or arrangement;
these sketch-figures can even be done very large and on
separate sheets. Later on they can be reduced and compiled
onto the drawing sheets as part of the “finaling” process
(Chapter 10).
After you’ve completed your sketches, write down a
name for each part adjacent to such part in each sketch,
such as “handlebar,” “handgrip,” “clamp,” “bolt,” etc.
Write the names of the parts lightly in pencil so that you
can change them readily if you think of a better term.
Use lead lines to connect each name to its part if the parts
are crowded enough to cause confusion. If you have any
difficulty naming any part, refer to the Glossary of Useful
Terms (Appendix 3), your prior-art patents, or a visual
dictionary such as The Firefly Visual Dictionary by Corbeil
and Archambault (Firefly Books, 2002) or the Visual
Dictionary of Science (DK Publishing, 1998).
Your drawing should be done in separate, unconnected
figures, each one labeled (“Fig. 1,” “Fig. 2,” etc.) so that all
possible different views and embodiments of your invention
are shown. If two figures are related, you can refer to them
with the same number but with different suffixes or primes,
for example, “Fig. 1A,” “Fig. 1B,” etc., or “Fig. 1,” “Fig. 1´,”
etc. Use as many views as necessary. Look at a relevant
prior-art patent to get an idea as to how it’s done. The
views should generally be perspective or isometric views,
rather than front, side, and top, engineering-type views.
If you have trouble illustrating a perspective view, take a
photo of a model of your invention from the desired angle
and draw the photo—perhaps by enlarging and tracing it.
Alternatively you can use a “see and draw” copying device
of the type employing a half-silvered mirror in a viewing
head on a pedestal; these are available in art supply stores
and through gadget mail-order houses. Hidden lines
should be shown in broken lines, as shown in Fig. 8C. For
complicated machines, exploded views are desirable as
shown in Fig. 8D. The drawings must be filed as a separate
document from your patent application (whether filing
in paper or via the Internet). Never include your drawing
sheets as part or pages of the written description.
Fig. 8C—Isometric View With Hidden Lines
You can use any reasonable symbols for mechanical,
electronic/electrical, and chemical parts; the PTO has no
requirements in this area, except that the symbols not be
outrageous. I suggest you use conventional symbols, such as
those approved by the ANSI (American National Standards
Institute), those used in conventional texts, or those used in
your prior-art patents. In lieu of graphical symbols, labeled
boxes are also acceptable, so long as the part represented by
the box is standard or conventional.
If you have an electronic system, a block diagram with
each block labeled (for example, “Schmitt Trigger,” “flipflop,”
“inverter”) is fine. If any block represents a nonconventional
circuit, however, be sure that you explain
clearly what’s in the block or provide a reference to a
suitable publication. If any block represents a programmed
microprocessor or computer, remember that you must
provide a listing of the program or a software flowchart to
provide a complete disclosure. (See Section F, above.)
If possible, one figure of your drawing should be
comprehensive enough to show the basic idea of the
invention and to be suitable for inclusion in the Official
Gazette (OG). If the PTO grants your patent, they will
publish one figure, the main claim, and the bibliographic
details of your patent in the OG. See Chapter 6, Section K,
for more on the OG. The other figures can be fragmentary
or partial views; you don’t have to show the same details
more than once.
Different colors and different shades of gray can be
shown with different types of shading lines, but provide
a suitable decoding legend in a separate figure. For more
information, see Nolo’s How to Make Patent Drawings, by
Jack Lo and David Pressman.
If your invention is related to a prior-art device, you may
want to illustrate the prior-art device in the first figure of
drawings so that you can explain it and its drawbacks. This
Fig. must be labeled “Prior Art.”