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Have you ever wondered what you were looking at when you reviewed a patent? Below are marked-up pages of U.S. Patent No. 5,396,965 with explanations.

1. Patent Number – The patent number is the number assigned a granted patent on its issue date.

2. Date of Patent – The date of the patent is the date that the patent was issued, not the date that the patent application was filed with the patent office. Before 1995, a patent term was 17 years from the date of the patent. In 1995 it changed so that the term of a patent was 20 years from the filing date. #7 refers to the filing date, so the astute reader will notice that this patent took six years to get through the patent office. The patent office has accounted for patent applications that take longer than three years to get through their office by having a patent term adjustment, which is not shown on this particular patent.

3. First Named Inventor – Most patents refer to the first named inventor. The reader will notice that there are other inventors credited to this invention. The first named inventor does not have any more rights to the patent than the other inventors, but according to law they all have an equal share regardless of how much they contributed to the invention.

4. Title – The title of the patent should describe the subject matter in the patent application.

5. Assignee – The assignee is the owner of the patent. According to patent law the inventors are the owners of the patent or patent application, but their rights can be assigned to another. Companies will usually require its employees to assign their rights to any future inventions to the company that were reasonably related to the job that the inventors performed for the company. For an assignee to have 100 percent ownership in a patent or patent application, all of the inventors must assign their rights to him.

6. Application Number – When a patent application is filed in the patent office it is assigned a number which is used while the patent application is pending.

7. Filing Date – This is the date on which the patent application was filed. The filing date is usually the priority date of a patent application which establishes a concrete date by which the inventor or inventors truly had come up with the invention. During examination, the patent examiner cannot use any reference that discloses similar technology to the claimed invention after the filing date of the patent application. In some cases the priority date may be different than the filing date, such as in cases where one application will depend from another application. The information in the earlier filed application will usually have similar information as the application filed later, and at least one inventor will be the same in both applications.

8. Search Fields – The patent office uses a classification system to categorize technologies. The examiner will typically search U.S. classes as well as international classes that are similar to the claimed invention. The classes help others researching a particular patent or technology to find related information.

9. Cited References – Both the examiner and the inventors (or anyone else involved in the preparation of a patent application) are required to provide the references that they feel may affect the patentability of the invention. Note that there are U.S. patent and non-patent references listed. Typically foreign patents as well as U.S. patent publications will be included in the cited references.

10. Credits – The patent examiner and the representative may be listed on the first page of a granted patent to credit them for their work.

11. Abstract – An abstract is designed to help the readers quickly determine whether the patent contains subject matter that they are interested in.

1. Patent Number – The patent number will appear on every page of the granted patent.

2. Date of Patent – The date of the patent usually appears on all of the pages containing figures.

14. Drawing Sheets – Usually the number of drawing pages are identified at the top of their pages.

15. Reference Number – This numbering is used to identify important features of the invention which are described in more detail in the description of the application.

16. Figure Number – Each figure is assigned a number to aid in patent organization.

1. Patent Number – The patent number is listed at the top of the pages containing text as well as figures.

2. Title – The title of the patent is included at the beginning of the written portion of the patent.

17. Column – Each page of the written portion of the patent is divided into two columns which are used for the reader’s convenience in readability and in identifying where information in the patent is.

18. Background of the invention – The background is used to describe the state of the technology before the invention described in the patent. Related patents and other references are usually disclosed here.

19. Summary of the invention – The summary is usually a brief, concise description of the invention that does not refer to the drawings.

20. Brief description of the drawings – The brief description of the drawings helps the reader determine what he or she is looking at without needing to refer to the detailed description of the invention.

21. Detailed description of the Preferred Embodiment – This portion of the patent typically refers to the figures and includes a detailed description of the invention with enough information that one of ordinary skill in the related technology of the invention would be enabled to make and use the best perceived way of making and using the invention.

22. Claims – The claims are the most legally binding portion of the patent. A patent owner only has rights to prevent others from making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing, and/or exporting what is claimed in the patent. Just because a figure or a written paragraph in the patent discloses ideas does not mean that those ideas are also protected—only what is claimed.

23. Independent claim – An independent claim usually states the invention in its broadest form.

24. Dependent claim – A dependent claim includes all of the limitations of the independent claim plus the limitations stated in the dependent claim. Usually if someone finds a way to get around an independent claim, the get-around will work for all of the claims that depend on the independent claim as well.

25. End of patent – The end of the patent is usually marked with this symbol.

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