Photonics Spectra - September 2009

agement blog e^(ip) at www.gillip.com. “But, it does take some time. You’re not just going to walk into it and use it as a normal text editor.”

Collaborators at work

Once an application has been developed, it’s time for an attorney to review the text, which can be a long and expensive process. Being able to establish inconsistencies or errors and to precisely denote a relationship between a part and the location in which it appears in the claims beforehand enable faster evaluation and lower cost.

Gill said professional patent drafting can cost from $300 to $900 an hour. “The more time that [inventors] spend on tools like TeamPatent, fleshing out their invention, improving the description, carefully mapping it to the drawings and getting their application ready for a patent professional, overall the application should cost significantly less to prepare.”

Inventors will have access to their files

the entire time the application is being analyzed, enabling last-minute changes and simultaneous follow-up with collaborators in separate locations. “TeamPatent allows multiple inventors to participate more fully throughout the process,” Gill said.

Upgrades

Kahn plans to extend TeamPatent’s editor for third-party developers, including those who handle academic papers, electronic medical health records, user manuals and software wire frames.

He hopes that TeamPatent will become a vital application processor for inventors around the world, with the US and foreign patent and trademark offices using the site to reduce the time needed to examine patent applications.