Patent Illustrations
Patent illustrations are those drawings and design documents that refer to the design of an invention and these illustrations are often contained within an application for patent. Depending on the jurisdictions, there may be legal requirements as to what form patent illustrations must take. In the United States when you make a patent application, there is a legal requirement that you submit illustrations most particularly when a drawing is needed to understand or explain the invention.
Companies like Patent Assistance Worldwide work with bonded draughtsmen to produce patent illustrations of inventor’s ideas. When the inventor applies for patent he or she must submit the illustrations with their application. When patents are applied for under US law, almost all applications should be accompanies by drawings outlining the invention. It is a legal requirement that patent illustrations reflect every feature in the invention and any claims made for it and US patent law specifies that illustrations need to be in a particular form. The patent stipulations are quite narrow and insist that a particular type of paper is used for the drawing, the size of the sheet of paper, the required margins, and other aspects relating to the document on which the illustration is drawn.
There are particular reasons why the US patent office makes so many stipulations regarding illustrations and the paper on which they are presented and this is because the patent sheets are printed in a uniform way when the patent is issued. Drawings have to be undertaken in a certain way so that they can be seen and understood by whoever is using the description of the patent. Drawings should not be individually identifiable and therefore should not contain any names on those aspects that will be seen. There are spaces above the hole locations and in between them that allow the identification of each sheet of a set of drawings.
Identification allowed on patent drawings will usually consist of the attorney’s name and ticket number or the application number and inventor’s name, pages may also include the sheet number and the total number of sheets pertaining to the drawing. Whether the drawings are for a product or a design patent application they can be drawn in color or in black ink. As a general rule the patent office will ask for black and white drawings but sometimes color drawings are allowed because that is the only way to properly describe what is the subject of the patent application. It is not usual for photographs to be allowed for patenting purposes unless it is the only way that is practical to properly represent the invention. Colored photographs may be acceptable for patent applications providing all the conditions for black and white photos and color drawings have been ruled acceptable. Patent Assistance worldwide is a clearing house for different people and companies including bonded draughtsmen that can help by producing the drawings or photographs for your patent application.