Dependent Claims

This week was entirely focused on my dependent claims and my hand-drawings. My mentor and I went over my independent claims and deemed them as concise and ready enough to continue to the dependent claims. The dependent claims were meant to be addressing unique functions of the invention which ranged from things like the size of each component and the plastic wrap around the piezoelectric electrodes. I learned a lot about the technical terms that are used when drafting claims such as wherein, apparatus comprising. The word that I often used was plurality and I used it when describing the piezoelectric electrodes or series circuits. Drafting the dependent claims was a challenge as I had trouble figuring out seven claims that I could potentially make. The unique thing about the invention is that it doesn’t follow patent-eligibility guidelines novelty in the normal novel way. The invention consists of building blocks fuzed together that create something novel. Therefore, the true novel part of the invention is the function and how it produces electricity in a shoe. I was able to create four out of my seven claims easily, however, the last three were the hardest. I solved this problem by researching other wearable technology patents and found ideas that I could use in my patent application. I would consider myself successful in the formatting and technical aspect because they sounded like an actual patent. I had a meeting with my mentor this week in which he told me that the claims sounded right, but they weren’t truly making sense because of a lack of cohesion in my sentence structure. We solved this problem by sitting together and revising the claims appropriately. A few questions that arose while drafting my dependent claims: What other legal terms are used when drafting claims? Is there a way to determine when your claim is too broad? Continuing on, I moved forward to my illustrations. I used the client’s models to create three figures which entitled the shoe appearance, the sole, and the piezoelectric structure. I learned a lot about how to label diagrams and how to properly address them when writing my written description. I have forwarded the claims to my mentor for reviewing and look forward to hearing from him/discussing any changes needed. I need to have a meeting with my mentor to discuss the written description and how I will start writing. They should take two weeks and then I just need to go back and make revisions to my application. I need to learn more about how to detail different functions as well as how to cite back to my initial claims next week.