Patent Strategy for Researchers and Research Managers, 3rd Edition

Preface to the First Edition

When I told a friend of mine, a patent lawyer, that I wanted to write a book on patent strategy, he gave me a quizzical look and said, ‘That's quite a task. You could write several volumes and still not cover it all.’ And right he was. From a legal standpoint, each patent application is different, so the strategy developed for each application is different. So, any book on patent strategy must both limit and focus the content for a particular audience.

The purpose of this book is to introduce the technical professional to strategic thinking as applied to patent applications and patent portfolios. An additional purpose is to introduce intellectual property concepts to the researcher to enable the researcher to work successfully with attorneys in the development of patent applications. This book will help both researchers and research managers understand how better patents can be obtained for inventions, and how to develop an entire portfolio of patents to protect intellectual properties.

My goal is to present these ideas and techniques in a straightforward manner with as little ‘legalese’ as possible. However, patents are legal documents, and you can never remove all of the legal terms and concepts from a discussion of patents. I will also attempt to provide global patent information which will be useful to the average researcher, while not attempting to provide all the details a researcher may need in dealing with patents. To do so would be an impossible ...