01
Disclosure call
You describe what you built. We ask the questions an examiner would ask, and tell you which instrument fits.
We write the application with the examination already in mind.
Filament Legal handles a patent matter end to end. The search comes first, because it decides whether to file at all. Drafting, prosecution, and the portfolio decisions after grant all follow from what it turns up. Maurice Williams spent seventeen years examining applications at the USPTO before he started writing them.
Drawings from expired US patents. Lit: US 1,113,675, Garrett A. Morgan, Breathing Device, filed 1912, granted 1914.
01
A search tells you whether to spend the money at all.
Patentability searches look for what already exists in your field: issued patents, published applications, products, papers, and anything else that could be cited against you.
The result is a written read on novelty and on where the open space sits. Sometimes the search finds a crowded field and the useful answer is that a filing would buy you a claim too narrow to enforce. We would rather tell you that for the cost of a search than for the cost of a prosecution.
A search also earns its keep later. Knowing the closest prior art before drafting shapes the claims, and knowing it before litigation shapes the strategy.
What you receive
- References found, with the closest art called out and explained
- A written opinion on novelty and likely obstacles
- A recommendation on whether and how to file
- A call to walk through what the search turned up
What drafting covers
- Independent and dependent claims built for the field you are in
- A specification with enough support for the amendments you will need
- Drawings prepared to USPTO standards
- A full draft you read, question, and approve before anything is filed
02
A patent protects exactly what its claims say and nothing else.
The specification exists to support the claims.
Two years into prosecution, an examiner will reject a claim and you will want to amend it. Whether you can depends entirely on what the specification already described on the day you filed. New matter cannot be added.
We draft with that day in mind, and we draft with you. Inventors consistently know a detail that never made it into the disclosure, and that detail is often the claim that survives examination.
03
Most applications receive at least one office action.
Receiving one says very little about whether your patent will issue.
An office action is a document written by a person working a docket under time pressure, citing references they believe read on your claims. Answering it well means separating the rejections that are correct from the ones that rest on a strained reading, then amending where amendment costs you little and arguing where it does not.
We also request examiner interviews. A fifteen-minute call frequently resolves what three rounds of paper will not.
What we handle
- Responses to rejections under sections 101, 102, 103, and 112
- Claim amendments that preserve scope wherever scope can be preserved
- Examiner interviews, and a written summary of every one
- Appeals and requests for continued examination when they are worth filing
- Continuations and divisionals covering what you built since
Questions we help answer
- Does this belong in a patent, or is it better kept as a trade secret
- Which of our filings should come first, given the runway we have
- What is this portfolio worth in a raise, a sale, or a license
- Are we free to launch this product given what others hold
- Which patents should we stop paying maintenance fees on
04
Patents cost money to obtain and more money to keep.
Maintenance fees come due on every granted patent, whether or not you would ever sue over it.
We work through what is worth protecting, what is worth protecting later, and what should never leave the building in a published application at all. For companies raising money or preparing to sell, we also give a candid read on what a diligence team will make of what you hold.
A patent matter runs six stages.
Timelines vary with the technology and with how busy the art unit is. These are the ranges we see.
02
Search and opinion
We search the field and give you a written read on novelty, obstacles, and open space.
03
Drafting and your review
Specification, drawings, and claims, revised with you until the draft describes what you actually built.
04
Filing
Provisional or non-provisional, filed on the date we agree, with the receipt to you the same day.
05
Examination
Office actions, responses, and interviews until the claims are allowable or the fight stops being worth it.
06
Grant and maintenance
Issue fee, then maintenance fees due three and a half, seven and a half, and eleven and a half years after grant, each with a six-month surcharge window after it. Continuations where they earn their cost.
Two bills arrive on every patent.
Two separate bills arrive on every patent matter: ours and the government's.
Attorney fees
What we charge to search, draft, file, and prosecute. We quote each stage before we start it, so you approve the cost of a step before the step happens. Ask us for a written estimate on your first call.
USPTO fees
Filing, search, examination, issue, and maintenance fees, paid to the government rather than to us. They scale with entity size, and small and micro entities pay substantially less than large ones.
Ask about entity status on the first call. Independent inventors and small companies frequently qualify for reduced USPTO fees and never find out. We check before we file.
Every stage is quoted before it starts.
Ask for the estimate on your first call. You approve the cost of a step before we take it, including the search that may tell you not to file.