Patent It Yourself - PDF Archive

264 | Patent it YOURSELF
1. Making Drawings Manually
I will discuss making drawings by hand first because this
method is older, having been used for hundreds of years.
Making drawing manually requires the ability to work
with India ink or a pencil that can make sharp lines and
drafting instruments and will require at least several hours
of learning time and practice.
a. Informal Drawings
To make informal drawings, I recommend that you select
from and use the techniques in Subsection b (Formal
Drawings) below, except that everything is done in pencil,
preferably on Mylar film, since this can be repeatedly and
easily erased without damaging the film. (Vellum is a lesspreferable
alternative and Bristol board is a third alternative.)
After you’ve made your penciled drawings (be sure to include
all details, since, as stated, you can’t add any new matter
later), make photocopies on 20- or 24-pound bond to include
with your patent application. Keep the penciled originals,
since you’ll need these to make your formal drawings
later, which the PTO usually will require you to file before
examination or after it allows your application.
b. Formal Drawings
The traditional or old way of making formal patent drawings
is manually, with pen, ruler, and other instruments. A set
of instruments can be assembled relatively inexpensively,
and making simple drawings is fairly easy. However, pen
and ruler allow little room for mistakes, because, except for
very small marks, it is very difficult to correct misplaced
ink lines. Nevertheless, with careful planning of drawing
positioning (layout), and great care in laying down ink
lines, drawing with pen and ruler is still a viable technique.
However, few professional patent draftspersons still make
drawings this way.
The necessary tools include pencils for preliminary
sketches, ink drafting pens (also known as technical
pens) for drawing ink lines, straight rules for drawing
straight lines, triangles for drawing angled lines, templates
for drawing certain standard shapes, French curves for
drawing curves, an optional drafting table, and Mylar (best)
or Vellum film or Bristol board. Pen and ruler may be used
to make patent drawings in the following ways:
i. Drawing From Scratch
You can draw an object by visualizing in detail what it
should look like, carefully sketching that image on the film
or board with a pencil, correcting it until it looks about
right, and finally inking over the pencil lines. The sketch of
a telephone is illustrated in Fig. 10C. You must have some
basic drawing skills to draw from scratch.
ii. Tracing
Tracing is much easier than drawing from scratch. An
obvious method is to trace a photograph of an object
that you wish to draw, as shown in Fig. 10D. You can also
trace an actual, three-dimensional object by positioning a
transparent drawing sheet on a transparent sheet of glass or
acrylic, as shown in Fig. 10E, looking at the object through
the glass, tracing the lines of the object on the film, and
photocopying the tracing onto a sheet of paper. Tracing
requires very little skill other than a steady hand.
iii. Drawing to Scale
You can also draw by scaling—that is, measuring and
then reducing or enlarging—the dimensions of an actual
object to fit on a sheet of paper, and drawing all the lines
with the scaled dimensions. For example, if an object has a
height of 50 cm and a width of 30 cm, you can reduce those
dimensions by 50%, so that you would draw it with a height
of 25 cm and a width of 15 cm to fit on the paper, as shown
in Fig. 10F. All other dimensions of the object are scaled
accordingly for the drawing. Making a drawing that looks
right is easier by drawing to scale than by drawing based on
only a mental image.
After making your ink drawings on film or Bristol board,
make good photocopies on good-quality 20- or 24-pound
bond paper for submission to the PTO. Keep the originals
in case you have to make changes later.
2. Drawing With a Computer
CAD (computer-aided drafting or design) allows you to
produce accurate drawings even if you consider yourself to
have little or no artistic ability. In fact, no drawing skills
in the traditional sense are needed at all. Furthermore,
CAD enables you to correct mistakes as easily as a word
processor enables you to edit words in a document. Even if
you discover a mistake after you’ve printed a drawing, you
can easily correct the mistake and print a new copy. To use
CAD, you will need some computer skills, but if you know
how to type letters on your computer, you can easily learn
how to draw with it.
You will need either a PC (IBM-compatible) or a Mac,
an ink jet or laser printer, a CAD program, an optional
scanner, and an optional digital camera. A computer may
be used to make patent drawings in the following ways.