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How to read a patent*

Copy of the first US Patent granted to Samuel Hopkins and signed by George Washington

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Most scientists and graduate students never really take a look at what is published in patents. There may be two fundamental reasons for this: (i) Patents can be viewed as a symbol of mercantilism hence been unworthy to "pure" scientists whose sole purposes are to understand nature and leave a (positive) mark on mankind history. (ii) Patents are hard to read and often written in a very vague language: Reaction X can take place between 100°C and 500°C and using an A/B molar ratio from 0 to ∞, etc. To be honest, patents cannot be other way around since their main purpose is to protect the financial interests of an inventor (or a big corporation, or big pharma, or InGen -if it happens that you just watched Jurassic World recently-) who wants to make profit from the fruits of his research toils. One must also be aware that patents are most often written by lawyers who view them as some sort of a treasury bond. This seems quite in contradiction with the patenting process since one of the main demands from patent offices is for the inventor to provide a detailed description of his invention. In consequence, what normally happens is that the legal advisers of the inventor make the proverbial needle in a haystack of searching valuable information in a patent. However, in the context of zeolite synthesis, Prof. H. Robson from Louisiana State University provided, some years ago, a few interesting tips on how to look for valuable information in patents and on what you should normally dismiss from them. We reproduce these tips next:

What to look for?

• The state of the art (sometimes included in the summary of the invention section). Very helpful for newbies in a given field; say, first year PhD students or postdocs researching in a topic not previously known to them. The value of the state of the art in a patent is that it summarizes very well what is known in both academia and industry about the particular field of the invention. This is a more comprehensive view of what is normally provided in most scientific papers.
• Examples. Take particular interest into examples that present extensive analyses of the featured invention and serve as the primary source for further examples. In many cases, target example 1.

What to dismiss?

• Most of examples. Besides the example that really describes the invention, patents contain many examples that seem particularly aimed to confound readers. As they are often based on example 1 or on slight modifications of example 1, you may well dismiss most of them from the beginning.
• Claims. As Prof. Robson puts it: "this is lawyers talking to lawyers". So, let them talk happily.

*Based on the original paper by H. Robson at Microporous and Mesoporous Materials 22 (1998) 551–662.

Additional useful information on patents can be viewed on youtube:

Patent basics video here.