Design patent drawing requirements are a collection of rules which are necessary to keep in mind while drafting a design patent application. The USPTO considers these rules as a customary procedure for all the patent illustrators to follow. Patent drawings are the key components for any successful patent application.
Moreover, they are even more important for a design patent than a utility patent. Hence, design patent drawing requirements play a huge role in managing the uniformity of an application. Not solely this, however, these rules conjointly facilitate in defining a consistent procedure for preparing patent drawings while avoiding many errors.
Also Read: How much does a Design Patent Cost?
Design Patent Drawing Requirements
Design patent drawings facilitate illustrating the invention as per the claims mentioned within the patent application. The patent drawing forever intends towards creating a major impact of the design patent application on the patent examiner. It is stated so, as these drawings exhibit the non-obvious, original, and ornamental characteristics of the claimed design. Moreover, the USPTO also keeps a count on these characteristics while granting a patent application.
Therefore, if you wish to prepare patent drawings, you must adhere to the USPTO design patent drawing requirements. This aids in cultivating ideal design patent applications. However, if you fail to conduct the needful, you might face a delay in the application process or the application remaining incomplete. Thus, this forms a strong barrier for an applicant in a domain wherein there are numerous competitors of the same field.
Hence, you must adhere to the below-mentioned design patent drawing requirements to reduce the chances of facing a rejection of the patent application.
Also Read: All about Non-Provisional Utility Patent Application
Black and White Drawings
You must use black or white-colored inks for preparing patent drawings. The ideal ink containing carbon particles, for preparing patent drawings is India Ink. Further, you can also use the traditional methods of preparing patent drawings using a pen and ruler. Although there might be negligible errors, you must prepare drawings carefully as it is tough to reverse the Ink lines. Not only this, but you must have a drawing perspective to create an appropriate drawing disclosure complying with the design patent drawing requirements.
Colored Drawings
You must consider including colored drawings only during those conditions when they are the best source of explaining the claimed invention. However, this process requires the applicant to file at least three sets of colored drawings along with the application. Moreover, you must file a USPTO petition with the application to receive access to attach colored drawings. Following this, you must fulfill the basic requirements including the payment of the petition fee. In addition to this, you may also state in the application that it contains a few colored drawings.
Also Read: You Can Secure a Patent with Illustrations: Know How?
Photographs
The inclusion of photographs is not always acknowledged as one of the essential design patent drawing requirements. Thus, you must consider including photographs only when preparing patent drawings is not enough to portray the claimed invention. Also, whenever used, they must hold sufficient strength to portray all claims of a patented invention.
Types of Views
Drawing views are one of the most essential components of design patent drawing requirements. The USPTO acknowledges the incorporation of as many drawing views as possible. It is stated so as the views aid in emphasizing the key visual features of the claimed invention. You can display views from the top, front, bottom, rear, left, and right sides. Moreover, you must keep in mind to arrange all the views collectively on the sheet with minimum wastage of space.
Also Read: Why are Provisional Patent Illustrations Important?
Shading
According to the USPTO design patent drawing requirements, shading is useful in portraying different surfaces of the claimed design. These might include cylindrical, circular as well as conical surfaces. You can only use solid black shading to represent bar graphs and their associated colors while preparing patent drawings. Further, space lines are the most preferred lines for shading. They must remain as thin as possible during their use and must depict a contrasting resolution. Additionally, you can use heavy lines for shading only when they do not collide with the reference characters used in the descriptions.
Scale
You must utilize the scales in a way that portrays the patent drawings. The same should apply even when the drawings are reduced to 2/3rd of their actual size. Moreover, the scale you choose must remain large and wide. This helps in avoiding any over-crowding of the figures.
Patent Drawing Identification
You must provide the top margin of the application sheets with the following details.
- Title of the invention
- Inventor’s name
- Application number
- Docket number
Also Read: Top 10 Most Interesting Patents in Last 5 Years
Conclusion
Good and well-presented drawings enhance the essentiality of the claimed invention. For this, the design patent drawings must remain precise and consistent. Thus, looking through the numerous categories involved in the design patent drawing requirements, you must consult the professional patent drawing illustrators.
They aid in providing the most appropriate patent drawings for your design patent application. Although, one may also think of preparing patent drawings on his own. However, it becomes an intimidating task to construct the patent drawings as the USPTO requirements are very uncommon and specific. Therefore, it’s unquestionably important to provide all drawing disclosures in a patent application with 100% compliance with the USPTO guidelines.
In addition to this, one may also give a thought about the cost of hiring a professional illustrator to conduct the design drawings. However, one must always compare this cost with a modest mindset to the hassle involved in dealing with a rejected patent application.
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