10 Ways to Ensure Rejection Proof Patent Illustrations

Patent illustrations are important and play a crucial role in the patent application. But unfortunately, most of the patent applications get rejected in the initial stage, then there are certainly other issues, including default in drawings, which is the most ignored part of the patent application.

The patent application is also interfered with without having the formal drawings and the purpose of adding drawing in the patent application is to create a visual appearance of the innovation because a description of the innovation alone cannot create an actual comprehension. The illustrations can be regarded as a secondary language that assists the potential and the society to get the actual picture of the innovation.

How Patent Illustration/Drawings got Rejected and How to Get Rid of Them

Let’s consider specific points due to which this patent got rejected: 

1. Do not admit to direct reproduction

Patent drawings should not be filed directly to the office. There should be proper black and white line drawings, which is highly preferable by almost all of the judiciaries who can use color or grayscale pictures too, for some specific patents only. For that, it is going to take more effort, time, expense, and expertise.

2. Drawing contains unnecessary text matter

Another rejection point, which says, the sheet or the drawing contains unnecessary text matter. This is when the patent gets rejected due to the carefree and non-professional approach of the applicant and ends up having an office action. The patent drawings should not have any text or number that is not needed or belong to the patent drawing and this is why you need a patent drafter who understands the draft and patent prerequisite.

3. Lines with persistent black color

The drawing should have lines with persistent black color that should be uniformly thick to be long lasting and withstand the pressure handling in several copies. It is a tedious task and it depends on the expertise of the illustrator who makes it precise to the requirement.

4. The cross-section

When an inventor dissemble its product, it divides into several sub-parts with their section surfaces. These surfaces need to be shown with a hatch filing into it where various hatch patents can be used to indicate various surfaces. It is necessary to have a patent expert who has this knowledge of hatch patents and how he or she differentiates among the surfaces and the material of different parts of patent drawings.

5. Non-distinguishable drawings while reproducing

This is a most important point of an objection among drawings and it keeps cropping in an office action many a time, especially in patent illustrations that have complexes in minor details. In this situation, while filing a patent, the drawings are reduced to size two-thirds in reproduction, indications, such as actual size or scale 1*2 are not allowed on the patent drawings since it will lose their meaning when reproduced in another format.

6. Difficult to differentiate claimed and unclean portions

In most of the design cases, it makes it difficult to differentiate between the claimed and unclean portions, this causes a to and fro rejection of the patent. A patent illustrator is proficient enough in preparing those patent drawings with fineness, without compromising with quality and claim of the patent product.

Another point that we used to see a lot in an office action form, that is, it contains numbers and letters, less than 0.32 cm. 

7. Maintain a constant size

Although, it seems much easier to maintain a constant size of the text. But this is among the most rapid reasons to receive rejection as it is essential to know which text to be kept and which not. Sometimes, the section including the text is too small or too large that it becomes very difficult to go by the standards. For getting it approved you will need the assistance of an expert in drawings.

Sometimes a figure is hard to keep on a single sheet. It occurs mostly in flow diagrams, piping and instrumentation diagrams, electrical circuits, and many more. To make them ready for filing, one must know how they can be split into different sheets by drawing connections among the parts of figures that can be seen as a single figure when assembled.

8. Figures are not properly arranged and separated clearly

Another objection coin contains figures which are not properly arranged and separated clearly. This becomes a problem when you try to keep multiple figures into one sheet, it makes the patent drawing messy and difficult to recognize the actual claims or essential details while reducing prediction.

9. Drawings not arranged in an upright position

It is said that the drawings are not arranged in upright positions, clearly separated from one another. In patent drafts, the figures are used to keep an upright position whether they are in cock-trait sheet or a landscape sheet. Orientation of the sheet can also lead a patent application towards rejection. These were the points that can cause a patent rejection and these were some of the common requirements that can be considered by most of the countries.

10. Satisfactory Reproduction

Satisfactory Reproduction guarantees that this patent is fit enough to be filed as per the PCT guidelines, it depends on the rule number 11 and 26 of the PCT system. These rules and points can be different for different countries, or maybe, they have similar rules, but with a different approach or different rule numbers. 

Conclusion

According to the patent laws, an applicant must furnish a patent illustrations of the invention wherever applicable. Innovation is always properly explained when the description is supplemented with a detailed illustration. The illustrator should draft illustrations keeping in mind the patent drawing rules of the concerned PTOs to avoid patent drawing rejections. This includes utility patent drawings and design patent drawings that can represent the invention in detail.