What to do before filing a patent

1. Fix the invention description

Write one sentence containing the problem, the mechanism, and the boundary of what you claim. Then write a second paragraph separating the core inventive element from the optional features around it. Most weak applications begin as strong ideas that were never pinned down; the drafting inherits the vagueness.

2. Look at what already exists

Search patent databases, then look outside them: commercial products, technical documentation, standards, academic papers, trade publications, even discontinued products. Record the closest three or four results and, for each, write what you believe the technical difference is. This is not a patentability assessment; it is the raw material for one.

3. Reconstruct your disclosure history

Go back through the last two years and list every occasion the invention was shown, explained, demonstrated, exhibited, pitched, published, posted or sold. For each: date, audience, what was actually revealed, and whether confidentiality applied. Do this before you speak to a professional — it is one of the first things they will need, and memory degrades.

4. Assemble the technical evidence

Collect drawings, schematics, test results, measurements, prototypes, logs, code, sample outputs — whatever demonstrates that the invention works and how. The test is whether someone skilled in the field could reproduce it from your material. If they could not, the specification will be thin no matter who drafts it.

5. State the commercial purpose in writing

One paragraph: who benefits from the protection, in which markets, and what decision the filing enables. Fundraising, licensing, a tender requirement, entry into a specific market, deterring a named competitor. If the paragraph cannot be written, the filing is a cost without a counterparty.

6. Choose the instrument deliberately

Patents trade disclosure for a time-limited right. Where your advantage is not readily discoverable from the product itself, a trade secret route may serve better. Where the market cycle is shorter than examination, speed and execution may matter more. Decide this consciously rather than by default.

7. Plan the money before you commit

Set out the expected costs across drafting, filing, examination, any foreign filings, and annual maintenance for the years you intend to hold the right. A filing you cannot afford to maintain provides a shorter protection window than most inventors assume.

8. Then engage a professional

With the six items above prepared, professional time is spent on judgment rather than fact-finding: assessing patentability, shaping claim strategy, and drafting. That is the part you cannot do yourself, and it is the part worth paying for.