SBIR Phase II: Collaborative Patent Drafting Software

This SBIR Phase II project will develop a patent-drafting software tool which addresses two critical problems currently preventing inventors from closely collaborating with patent attorneys: 1. Attorneys need tools to hold their comprehension of and manipulate the relations in the document while ensuring they're used correctly and 2. Inventors need an ability to share the attorney's comprehension of the relations, review the application at any time, and author parts of the specification without requiring extensive oversight or rework by the attorney. The project will entail prototyping a set of collaborative knowledge representation methodologies, which are not currently available on any platform and which require cutting-edge, broadband-enabled infrastructure. The U.S. economy relies heavily and increasingly upon intellectual property, and patents are the primary currency of this economy. 500,000 utility patent applications will be filed in 2008 with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), a quantity that has been growing annually at 7.5% for a decade. As patents become more significant in the operations and outcome of U.S. businesses, it becomes increasingly important to assure that the system can be efficiently traversed by high-technology startups, which will provide the next-generation of innovations. A U.S. patent application typically costs $10,000 and requires either specialized knowledge or the time to learn how to navigate the process. The large expense and difficulty of patents leads companies to triage protection for their innovations, leading to curtailment of promising activities due to the lack of a budget for patent protection. They must decide whether to divert precious capital and engineering resources from product development to patenting. The proposed patent-drafting software tool will encourage greater participation in the intellectual property economy by reducing costs, increasing relevance, and allowing inventors to actively participate in drafting the application.