Drafting For Multiple Jurisdictions Miniseries Part III: Mind Your Language!

Many patent owners are interested in trying to draft a single patent application that will serve them in several countries. This is ambitious, since there are many differences between various countries' patent systems, but perhaps not impossible. The patent drafter just needs to be aware of and try to balance all the different requirements in the single patent application. This series of articles will outline some important considerations when drafting a single patent application. In our first article (available here), we reviewed the grace period provisions in the U.S., Korea, China, and the European Patent Office ("EPO"). In our second article (available here), we looked at how much data should be included on filing. Since the drafting requirements are different in each country, in this article, we will look at language we should be mindful of in drafting a patent application for multijurisdictional use. The article may be found on Finnegan's AIA blog.