What Are Patent Drawings?

Utility patents

For a utility patent (what most people mean when they say patent), the inventor needs to explain how the invention works to the United States Patent Office (USPTO). That explanation is provided in the written specification and the drawings. The drawings have several numbered arrows pointing out the key parts of each drawing. The bulk of a patent’s text is an explanation of the numbered parts of the drawing.

A patent is a lot of things: a legal document, a valuable asset, public education, but it is foremost a technical document. A patent teaches engineers to build a machine, programmers to make a system, and chemists to synthesize a compound. What are patent drawings when they are not scientific figures or technical diagrams?

Design patents

Some patent drawings are of ornamental designs on a plate or the shape of a shoe. Design patents protect the look of a particular design. A design patent application is not much more than a drawing. A design patent only contains a few sentences explaining what the design is and how it looks. For that reason, a U.S. patent search for a design patent is very complicated.

For example, you have an idea to make a high-heeled shoe with a railroad spike for a heel. Your application will mostly consist of drawings that you have made of the spiked high-heeled shoe. One way to make the design patent as broad as possible is to make drawings of variations on the shoe: one pointy-toed, one round-toed, and one with a slingback. You expand your design concept across multiple kinds of high-heeled shoes and make it harder for your competition to make a similar shoe. To protect multiple variations of a product, it is often necessary to file multiple design patent applications.

Not all design patents are for fashion and housewares. Design patents cover computer interfaces or the layout of smartphone operating systems. It may take multiple design patents for different interfaces or menu screens in order to protect all the novel designs in an operating system or computer interface.

Provisional patents

Drawings are also an important part of a provisional patent application. A provisional patent application allows an inventor to file a simpler application. A provisional patent is a simple way for the inventor to have a patent application on file. Within a year of filing the provisional patent, the inventor has to file a utility application that links back to the provisional application.

When an inventor files the utility application, only the information in the provisional application has an earlier effective filing date. If an inventor adds new information in the utility application that was not in the provisional, it is considered “new matter” that is not entitled to the earlier provisional filing date. A good provisional patent application is broad. It includes a lot of information and a lot of variation. That way, when the inventor needs to convert the provisional into a utility patent he has options.

For example, you invent a new mechanism for a reciprocating saw that supports two blades. You get a meeting with a tool manufacturer and quickly draft a provisional application to protect your rights. In it, you include a drawing of an idea you had for a three-bladed reciprocating saw that uses the same mechanism. You never tested it, but based on what you know, it should work.

After talking with the tool company, you realize that the three-bladed saw is perfect for them. You built the three-bladed prototype, and it works just like your drawing in your proposal. When you go to convert the application, your patent attorney reads your provisional application. She concludes that because you have both two- and three-bladed saws, you can expand the scope of the invention to as many saw blades as can be supported by your mechanism. You do another experiment and realize that up to five blades can be supported by the mechanism in your provisional application. You draft the utility patent accordingly.

A good patent drawing is worth pages of written text. It can be the basis for expanding your good idea to its full application. Drawings are the heart and spine of your invention. They are also one part that the inventor can help the most with.

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