Reading and analyzing patents is not easy. Not only is the subject matter dense, but you also have to constantly go back-and-forth between the claims, the specification, and figures. To help a little with this process, we’ve added a new patent downloading and analysis tool called Patent Reader to the Pro/Pro+ versions that lets you conveniently review published US patent applications, US patents, and your own application drafts in an easy-to-review HTML document with annotated figures, smart search capabilities, and other helpful information. Here’s a sample Patent Reader document.
You can access the Patent Reader feature from the Individual Proofreading Tools->Patent Reader (Beta) menu.
Once you specify the US patent or publication number, ClaimMaster will pull the necessary text and images from public sources, such as USPTO or Google patents, into a single, easy-to-read page. Alternatively, you can supply figures OCRed with a 3rd party software or use ClaimMaster’s built-in OCR capability. The same process can also be used to review local patent application drafts.
The Patent Reader will then open a local HTML page with side-by-side views of the specification, figures annotated with part names, and identified part numbers/names in the specification. In addition, you have access to various highlighting and search tools within the Patent Reader interface to make searching for specific words/phrases in the specification and figures easier.
Here’s a screen shot of the claim section of the Patent Reader document – it includes the claim tree, searchable/hierarchically organized claims, and also an image of the claims section of the patent/publication.
For now, the Patent Reader only works for the US patents and publications, but we’ll soon support the review of non-US patent as well.
Also check out other improvements in this release: