While patent drawings are essential for almost any successful patent application, they are even more important for design patent applications than for utility patents. Since design patents are for ornamentation and appearance, the drawing IS the disclosure. When considering what goes into drawings for design patents, it’s good to keep...
By law, patent applications need to include at least one drawing if the patented object or process is capable of being rendered in an illustration. However, it’s always worthwhile to try and include a drawing if at all possible, even if for a particular patent application it’s not strictly...
Nowadays, no one but an inventor would hang a patent drawing on a wall. But once upon a time, patent drawings often went way beyond the merely functional – some of them were museum-quality works of art. Take a look at this drawing from a patent for a fire ladder...
Patent drawings aren’t just like other kinds of drawings. Patent illustrations aren’t intended to just show what an invention looks like. For utility patents, they need to be specific and detailed enough that someone “skilled in the art” can actually build the item described or use the method disclosed by...