Software is ubiquitous in today’s tech-savvy world. Many technological advances that are being made today in mobile application development, medical devices, electronics and computers are largely attributable to innovative new software. When software is a critical part of a novel and nonobvious invention, it may be possible to obtain patent protection for your proprietary software or mobile applications. To be clear, the software code itself is not patentable (but it can be protected by other intellectual property, like copyright), but the methods of how aspects of your software-based invention interact with one another may be patent eligible.
The Rapacke Law Group can help you file for the appropriate patent protection that you need for your software-based innovations and mobile applications. Whether you need a utility patent for how your software works, or a design patent for how your mobile application’s graphical user interface looks, the software IP professionals at The Rapacke Law Group can help.
How To Help Your Patent Lawyer Prepare Your Software Patent Application
You know and understand your software invention better than anyone, but you are going to need to explain it to your patent lawyer if you want to file for patent protection. One of the ways that you can save you and your lawyer a lot of time and frustration is if you spend some time preparing how to explain your software invention to your lawyer. Since software innovations can be confusing and complicated, there are several things that you can do to help your patent lawyer understand your invention quickly, and in turn, your lawyer will be better able to prepare your software patent application for filing.
For starters, it is a good idea to prepare an invention disclosure statement for your lawyer. An invention disclosure statement is a short document in which you describe your invention and its innovative features. Include as much detail as possible in your invention disclosure, while being clear and logical in how you explain the important aspect of the software-based invention. Consider using organized steps to explain how the software works.
Visual aids can be helpful as well. For instance, flowcharts can be helpful as a tool for visually explaining how your software program operates. If you have wireframes explaining how your mobile application or website-based software platform operates, or a sequence of illustrations depicting how the graphical user interface of your computer program looks, these visual aids can help your patent lawyer quickly grasp the key points of your invention.
Engineering documents can be helpful to your lawyer during patent application drafting. Provide your lawyer with specification sheets, requirement documentation and a copy of the code.
A strong patent application is more likely to be issued as a patent, and will provide better legal protection for you. Here are some recent software patent examples from top companies. With the right input from you, your patent lawyer will be able to prepare a provisional, non-provisional or design patent application on your innovative software-based invention or mobile application that will yield the most benefit and commercial value for you.
The Rapacke Law Group has a dedicated area of practice for obtaining software and mobile application intellectual property rights. Please feel free to contact us for a free initial consultation to discuss how we can help you obtain IP protection on your proprietary software innovations.
