LESSON 4: APPLICATIONS 101

BASICS OF APPLICATION DRAFTING

In this lesson, you will learn about our process for drafting a patent application. In particular, this presentation will focus on drafting an introduction and overview for your patent application.

TRAINING VIDEO

SELF-PRACTICE ASSIGNMENT

For this assignment, you will need to prepare one or more overview figures to illustrate the self-study example. Prepare an introduction and overview to accompany the one or more overview figures.

Self-Study Example

U.S. Pat. Pub. US-2016-0214533-A1
(View Here)

Example Invention Disclosure Form

Title: Autonomous-Driverless Car Cameras For Street View

Description of Idea:

In the future there will be many driverless cars on the road. These cars capture images (in the form of images and videos) to enable driverless operation. They also have many sensors, such as accelerometers and gyroscopes, that are capturing data to enable driverless operation. We could have an imaging computer that captures these images and data (i.e., over a network) and classifies it. Then when someone wants streetview data on their phone or another device, the imaging computer can provide that streetview data. The imaging computer can have mathematical algorithms to merge images together. Like, if one part of an image is too dark, it could detect that, find another image of the same spot, and merge that other image in to create a composite image that is higher quality. This is really important.

Notes from Inventor Interview:

  • The imaging computer could dispatch an autonomous vehicle to a particular location for which imaging is wanted (i.e., when a user requests it or because the imaging computer knows that it doesn’t have that imaging). This is an important differentiator because then the imaging computer can combine archived images with real time images from dispatching vehicles to provide really high quality images to a user. The imaging computer would have algorithms for selecting which of a fleet of autonomous vehicles to dispatch (i.e., based on sensor measurements). The imaging computer could even automatically compensate owners of the autonomous vehicle for allowing it to be dispatched. Maybe have bidding? Dispatching may be location based “Go to this GPS coordinate” or subject based “Photograph the empire state building” or “Photograph cows grazing”.
  • There are many other sensors that autonomous vehicles have -> GPS, weather, temperature, light levels, orientation, heading, elevation, time of day, barometric pressure.
  • The imaging computer could classify the images or video based on the sensor data.
  • To save memory, the imaging computer may in
  • sert classifier data into image frames (e.g., of a video) every couple of frames rather than every frame.
  • Users might have to log in to ensure that they’re authorized to receive images or pay for images or dispatch driverless cars.
  • Could be other driverless vehicles like drones.
  • Might use a scoring system to determine whether to us an old image, a new image, a combination of an old image and a new image (and which one). Score may be based on quality, recency, or any other recorded data.

REFERENCE MATERIAL

The below reference material provides additional information regarding how to draft a patent application in an effective manner. The document has an example specification as well as comments to help you understand how to adapt the form to your own patent application drafts.

Patent Application Guide

QUESTIONS OR FEEDBACK?