One of the important tasks involved in preparing a patent specification is creating drawings. Generally, drawings, which illustrate, systems related to software inventions and flowcharts are relatively easy to prepare and are less time consuming. However, preparation of drawings, which have to illustrate apparatus, devices and parts of tangible equipments are often time consuming and require skills corresponding to using more advanced sketching/designing tools.   

In light of the time consuming and skill intensive nature of work involved in patent drawing preparation, outsourcing such tasks to companies that specialize in them has gained popularity among patent practitioners.

I have often observed that, generally, outsourcing of patent drawing preparation occurs in the following scenarios: 

• Inventors are unable to provide line drawings, which can be used in a patent specification
• Inventors provide photographs of a prototype or a hand made sketch
• The drawings have to be made using commercially available designing software 
• When a patent attorney neither has a dedicated draftsperson who can prepare complex patent drawings, nor has sufficient bandwidth to spare time for preparing complex patent drawings    

In my opinion, one should have the following skills to prepare illustrations, which can be used in patent specifications:

• Excellent working knowledge of the tools used for preparing patent drawings
• The illustrators should preferable be engineers, as such illustrators are generally familiar with the technology for which drawings have to be prepared
• Good understanding of USPTO and PCT guidelines for patent drawings
• Good understanding of how drawings will be referred to in the detailed description   

In light of the skill set desired for preparing patent illustrations and the effort required for such tasks, outsourcing patent illustration preparation is commonly outsourced.

We work on such patent illustration projects frequently. To know more about ther service we offer and fee for the same, contact us at [email protected] or fill in this form.

Regards,

Team InvnTree 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/