Performance Checks to Provide Better Patent Services

Improvement is iterative. It often arises from an accumulation of small changes that stem from experience and self-awareness. Before making changes, one must first be aware of steps that will likely lead to better results. Performance checks help to identify issues to address in improving outcomes and efficiency.

For patent practitioners, feedback is crucial for making informed decisions and providing better patent services. More specifically, we need actionable patent data and analytics to help us understand how well we have been doing and how our performance compares to that of others. It can also clue us in as to what we can do differently to achieve better results for our clients. But perhaps most important is the fact that feedback needs to be as close to real-time as possible. In that way, we can address mistakes before we submit them to the USPTO and take actions that ensure mistakes will not be repeated on future projects.

LexisNexis® Intellectual Property patent drafting and patent prosecution tools combine USPTO patent data and advanced analytics to provide users with the ability to do performance checks and receive feedback they can use to improve patent drafts and patent prosecution performance—and provide better patent services to clients.

Performance checks on patent drafts

The patent application drafting process sets the tone for patent prosecution. After all, how a patent application is drafted has a profound effect on the types of rejections and objections that are issued, and its content serves as the foundation for any arguments an applicant may have in favor of patentability. While many patent attorneys review their work, it is both time-consuming and difficult to remain objective. Similarly, a peer review is also often limited in quality due to human error. And, unfortunately, because many patent applications remain pending for years before an applicant receives correspondence from the USPTO, patent practitioners can easily repeat their mistakes over and over without even knowing it.

The LexisNexis PatentOptimizer® patent drafting tool integrates seamlessly with common and familiar word processing software and is capable of performance checks providing patent professionals with comprehensive assessments of all parts of their patent applications. PatentOptimizer® can be used to identify a full spectrum of issues ranging from minor mistakes, such as clerical issues and improper labeling of patent drawings, to more significant issues, such as lack of antecedent basis in an invention’s description, as well as other grounds for rejection. Significantly, PatentOptimizer evaluations are nearly instantaneous, so patent practitioners can address issues before their patent application reaches their patent examiner’s desk.

Patent prosecution performance checks

While it is important to draft high-quality patent applications, it is equally important for patent professionals to strive to improve their performance post-filing. The LexisNexis PatentAdvisor® patent analytics platform allows patent professionals to create digital briefcases containing any or all of the patents they (or their firm) have worked on. Users can run performance analytics on the briefcase contents as a whole or on any patent or patent application within the briefcase. PatentAdvisor™ users can view patent statistics, such as how many office actions an application received or how many office actions a specific patent attorney receives on average. Users can conduct performance checks to assess their patent performance in specific technology centers to identify areas of strength and weakness, and they can even rely on proprietary PatentAdvisor metrics to determine how well they have performed in light of the difficulty of the patent examiner.

For additional patent prosecution performance checks, PatentAdvisor™ Business Development & Analysis easily and objectively compare prosecution outcomes for law firms and companies. Benchmarking Reports allow for two types of comparisons: an outside counsel report to easily compare how different law firms are performing for the same company, and a competitive analysis report demonstrating how different law firms/corporations compare to each other in a particular technology area.

The biggest improvements come from real-time, actionable feedback. Patent drafting and prosecution tools from LexisNexis® Intellectual Property provide patent professionals with ability to conduct performance checks and gain information they need to provide superior patent services to their clients.

Learn more about PatentOptimizer and discover how to create high-quality patent applications.

Learn more about PatentAdvisor and explore how to conduct performance checks, assess performance and conduct objective comparisons with patent metrics.