Patent Workbench: a nail gun, not a hammer
Reviewing a file history is often a time-consuming, exhausting and resource-intensive process. Even if you’re dealing with a single patent, you still need to trawl back through the office actions, look at the subtle differences in wording of the various filings or revisions, and then make a judgement on its worth.
With Patent Workbench, Landon IP thinks it has the answer. David Hunt, chief executive of the company, says the product provides “an entirely new way” of looking at patent file histories. “Patent Workbench provides a patent practitioner with a high quality copy of the file history, but also dramatically improves productivity by offering enhanced navigation tools, making it easy to compare and analyse claims, and providing advanced search tools.”
Patent Workbench saves companies and attorneys a lot of time, but it also increases accuracy. One outside counsel recently said, “It gives me comfort that I have fully reviewed the file history prior to drafting an opinion. I don’t have the same confidence that every detail has been uncovered and reviewed when it is reviewed without the help of Patent Workbench.”
Rather than someone manually comparing different iterations of a specific claim, the software does this automatically, allowing patent practitioners quickly to see how a claim has evolved through every stage of the prosecution. The software also includes a robust comparison tool that provides visual indicators of words that have been added or removed.
Patent Workbench has many potential applications, not the least of which is assisting patent practitioners with claims construction: reviewing the wording of claims at different places in a file to determine the scope and meaning of the claims, their references to the patent specification, and what the examiner has found acceptable or not.
Looking at how a term was construed throughout the prosecution offers insights into what exactly a particular patent might cover, how to write an application for a new patent in a similar technology, and how to litigate more effectively. Advanced search features in Patent Workbench provide immediate access to places in the file where a particular term is used; this takes far less time than going through a prosecution history page by page.
“THE SOFTWARE ALLOWS USERS TO CREATE A CLAIMS MATRIX INSTANTLY, WHICH ALIGNS THE ORIGINAL CLAIM WITH THE VARIOUS AMENDMENTS THAT HAVE BEEN MADE TO IT.”
As Hunt says, “A patent applicant is permitted to be his or her own lexicographer, so knowing their intentions by effectively reviewing the prosecution file is vital. Today’s method of reading a file word by word is archaic and inefficient. There is no longer any reason for a chief legal officer to have outside counsel read a file history without using Patent Workbench.” The product also allows practitioners to quickly home in on the most relevant references, determine how many times a given word appears, and isolate key terms for analysis.
Patent Workbench took years to develop. Hunt explains, “In our 60-year history, Landon IP has worked with thousands of patent practitioners. We’ve learned many things about the challenges they face when working with patent file histories.
During development, we worked extensively with attorneys who shared feedback that allowed us to ensure that Patent Workbench meets the needs of our users. Our beta test patent attorneys confirmed that we got it right and said that Patent Workbench will change the industry.”
The product was launched in July 2011, and already has several users. “We’ve only heard positive feedback,” Hunt says. “Some have been blown away. We’ve had people say they will use it for all their patent cases.”
Customers include several prestigious firms as well as large corporations, and it’s clear that the ease and functionality of Patent Workbench make it a compelling proposition. The software is continually developing in response to customers’ feedback, says Hunt, so those who are using the product now will have the most say about what happens in the future.
What does it cost? “There’s no point in developing a new, sophisticated work product if the price makes it seem like a luxury,” says Hunt. With Patent Workbench there are no subscriptions, licences, or maintenance fees. There is only a simple per-page price for each file purchased, which makes it easy for attorneys to bill the cost back to their clients. And those clients save money, due to the reduced time required to review the file history.
The Patent Workbench software, though protected as intellectual property, is free to customers, who pay only for the specially prepared file history.
How it works
