A post from our student blogger Brittany

Well ladies and gentlemen we have come to the end of the program.  This has been nothing short of an amazing experience. I am elated that you followed me through the highs and lows of the past 10 months and I hope you were able to take away some invaluable information about the program from my point of view that can help you if you’re interested in transitioning into the field of patent law. My apprehension evident in my initial posts has subsided completely and I am ready to tackle my new position as a technical advisor immediately following graduation.

We have a dinner planned for the day before graduation and our families will be able to not only meet Karen and Cathi, but they will also be able to meet the Professors that have been providing words of wisdom throughout the year. I can’t speak for my classmates but I always told my mom about our Professors so she is definitely ready to put some faces to the stories I’ve been telling her all year. It will be bittersweet to say goodbye to everyone, but it’s nice to know that although we came in as students we will be walking away as colleagues and friends.

I can honestly say that I have built some relationships throughout this program that will last a lifetime. We had a very exciting group of students that are intelligent, hilarious and unfiltered (some more than others). I wish them all nothing but success on their next steps in life.

If you or someone you know is considering transitioning into the world of patent law I strongly suggest looking into this and similar programs because I feel much more prepared to start working than I would have had I not participated in the MSPL program. Although the cost of the program was initially a hard pill to swallow since I’d come from a fully paid doctoral program, it was worth every penny. From the relationships formed, the strength of the curriculum, and the extracurricular opportunities, I wouldn’t change a thing. Don’t be afraid to pivot professionally in a direction that better suits your interests and professional goals.  Remain true to yourself and you will not go wrong.

A post from student blogger Nicole

First off I just need to say how cold it is here.  It was six degrees the other day and my weather app said it felt like negative eleven.  Negative eleven degrees!  That’s crazy talk.  My skin can’t handle negative temperatures and riding my bike to class definitely makes it worse!  As you can see from the picture, that is what I wear on my way to class.  I probably look like I’m stealing my bike when I go to unlock it from the bike rack.  I use to think that twenty degrees was cold, but I was dead wrong.  But enough about me complaining about the weather.  Classes are going great so far.  I like my schedule this semester and the teachers are great, kudos to Karen for picking these teachers for the program this semester as well as last semester.

I decided to talk about our patent prosecution class today.  I find it very interesting.  So far we’ve had an assignment where we had to find information on a couple patents and another assignment where we had to find certain forms to fill out as well as write a response to a notice.  The forms will help us get acquainted with which ones are important to use and when to use them.  An example of one of the forms we use is a petition for extension of time.  This just allows you to request more time to submit a response to a notice, but be careful because you only get a certain amount of months of extension before it’s not possible anymore and you abandon the application.  Also there’s a fee every time you need to use one of these forms.  The patent office loves money.  A response to a notice is pretty much what it sounds like.  You receive a notice and it will tell you if there is something missing, needs to be added, etc., to the application and you reply to it with what you need to add or change.  There are many types of notices that can be given out, but it is best to try and avoid getting them because they take up unnecessary time if it’s something insignificant that you left out.  An example of that would be if the margins are the wrong size when you submit an application.  It seems a little silly if you ask me, but I’m very glad we have this class because it’ll be better to mess up here rather than in the real world.   I have a feeling that this prosecution class will be very helpful with my future job.

 A post from student blogger Brittany

So I’ve previous told you all that I am a graduate intern in the Office of Technology Transfer at ND. Part of my responsibilities include identifying possible licensees for technologies developed at the University and conducting patentability searches. Recently I was asked to review a final office action and draft a potential solution to overcome the rejection.

As I was sifting through all of the previous office actions trying to come up with an answer I realized that the patent examiner distinctly used a term of art in reference to the specifications which then found its way into the claims. Unfortunately, once the applicant used that exact same term of art in the claims they received a swift rejection.

Let me backtrack for a second and provide you with a little patent drafting 101. The claims of any patent application MUST BE FULLY SUPPORTED BY THE SPECIFICATIONS. The specifications include a detailed description of the new technology as to enable anyone to make, use or sale the new technology. In the case of the patent application in question, the examiner used a word, then the applicant amended the claims to include the word, and then the examiner rejected the claims because the word was not in the specifications… It seems absolutely ridiculous but that is how this patent thing works guys.

In the words of Professor Wack NO NEW MATTER, don’t add in anything in the claims that is not supported by the specifications even if the patent examiner tells you too. If the applicant had revised the specifications to include the term, then I believe that the patent examiner would have probably issued an allowance instead of a rejection. To top it all off, there were only four claims….FOUR CLAIMS…I would have expected so much back and forth for at least 10 claims but hey that’s the USPTO for ya.

A post from student blogger Nicole

Doesn’t the title look like a made up work?  Well believe it or not it’s actually real!  It’s pronounced [flok-suh-naw-suh-nahy-hil-uh-pil-uh-fi-key-shuh n] and it’s one of the longest words in the English language.  It means the estimation of something as valueless.  Well I sure can think of something that’s valueless and it’s this word.  Who would ever use this word in a sentence or write it down.  It’s definitely not worth the 3 minutes it even takes to say it, if you didn’t have the pronunciation already at hand, or the amount of spelling errors just to write it.

But enough about this unnecessarily long word.  I just figured it would be a perfect transition into talking about patent law and made up words (in a good way).  Surprisingly there are many made up words when it comes to writing patent applications.  When it comes to describing something, sometimes all of the real words in the dictionary just don’t cut it.  Because of this, the made up words were born.  Here are a few examples that I could come up with off the top of my head.  Therebetween, slidably, hingedly, releasably, removably.  They’re real words but not used correctly as real words.  Regular adverbs just don’t cut it.  Obviously describing a wall locking mechanism that can lock two walls together but also release the lock of the walls, doesn’t work.  So instead it becomes a wall locking mechanism for releasbly locking the walls.  Also describing a member that can slide against a mechanism could be described as the member is slidably movable against a mechanism.  This helps get to the point easier and describe the object in a shorter way that still makes sense.  There are very few times, while reading patent applications that I can remember where the made up words didn’t work.  I have to admit though, I am not a fan of therebetween.  That was why it was one of the few words I could think of.  To me it just sounds awkward and bulky.  But it works for enough people for me to have come across it.  So if you’re good at making up adverbs, or are okay with using them, then patent application drafting is for you!

A post from student blogger Nicole

We all love this time of year.  The temperature is dropping but it’s not too cold yet, and our favorite holiday is approaching.  Halloween.  How many of you out there love haunted houses?  The excitement, anxiety, fear.  Who doesn’t love a good scare!  And don’t get me started on trick or treating!  This holiday makes me a kid again.  But this is also the time of year when you realize it’s pretty much November already!  When did this happen? I feel like we just started!

So let me slow things down a bit to compare this great holiday with patent law.  I imagine being a patent agent will be like trick or treating.  You will be working on all kinds of inventions and every now and then you will hit the jackpot and write a patent for a very interesting invention.  Similar to trick or treating you go from house to house looking for candy and you hit the mother lode.  A house giving out the big sized candy bar.  That was the jackpot house.  But I also assume that as a patent agent you will work on inventions and other tasks that you enjoy.  Similar to that one piece of candy that you find way better than any other kind and you love to get it.  But I don’t really know what to expect when I finally start working in the real world.  It will be unpredictable just like a haunted house.

I also see being a patent agent as a type of costume.  When you tell people you’re going to grad school for Patent Law they usually ask how long is the program and you say it’s only a year.  They look at you in disbelief.  “How can you get a law degree in one year?”  And my response is “Well you see, I have an engineering background and the program is a master of science so technically it’s not the usual law degree, and I will become a patent agent verses a patent lawyer.”  They still really have no clue what I’m talking about until I say I will help people get patents without a law degree.  As simple as that.  I receive the more understanding “Ohh, okay” after I tell them that simple sentence.  So this leads me to believe that as a future patent agent I am really just a patent lawyer in disguise; I am a patent lawyer without the law degree.

But back to this time flying by!  I didn’t think about it as much in the beginning of the semester because I was still settling in, but now I know what the teachers were saying.  They called it from the beginning of the semester and now I believe them.  Soon I’ll be writing my last blog and be heading out into the real world before I know it!

A post from student blogger Josh

My favorite aspect of MSPL is the Capstone project. I’m aware that this may not be a popular opinion, but actually getting a chance to prepare a full patent application in a low-stress, academic environment is a unique opportunity. Despite how enamored I am with the idea of the project itself, there are certain pitfalls. For instance, one can interview inventors and conduct searches, only to eventually find that the project itself may not work out. Unfortunately, this does not mean that you get an “A for effort” and the accompanying plastic trophy, but rather that you have to go back to the drawing board (literally) and start over. After all, you can’t actually get a M.S. without writing a thesis, even if the reason for scrapping said thesis is out of your control.

It’s Oct. 28, which means I’m more than a quarter of the way through the M.S. in Patent Law program. This is about the time when I should be seriously hitting the throttle on my Capstone project. After months of searching, interviewing, and just generally learning, I should be ready to put some serious pen to paper, draft claims, and protect some intellectual property. But alas, poor Yorick, that’s just not happening. Instead, I’m staring down the barrel of soon receiving a new disclosure, and beginning the entire process again.

So guess what I’m not doing? Stressing. This program has so many helpful mentors who want to see its members succeed, and I’m not the first person to run into a serious snag on his Capstone. This means it’s time for me to sit in a hammock, take some chill pills, read a leather bound book, and do what I do best: nothing. I can’t start anew on my thesis until I have a subject, which will not be for another few days. I’m still going to graduate, nobody is going to let me fail (unless I help them), and I get to treat the whole thing as a learning experience. Plus, as a professional I won’t get the luxury of filing one patent application every 9 months, so I may as well learn to write them more quickly now.

To those of you who are having troublesome Capstones: every year, someone runs into an issue with the Capstone project. Patent applications and the ideas behind them are complex. It would be insane to expect the process of writing your first one to be seamless. At least one of the people who reads this will run into a snag of some sort. When you do hit said snag, just keep in contact with your mentors and relax. If you’re here, you’re in good hands. Your stress won’t solve any problems, so just do what you can and let the rest go. You’re here to learn, not to be perfect (and even if you were supposed to be perfect, all you can do is your best, and freaking out won’t help that either). So give it your all. If that doesn’t work out, talk to Karen, have a drink on me, watch some Amy Schumer standup, and try again tomorrow (preferably in that order).