Abstract:

Patent law imposes rigid constraints on the structural composition of patent claims that are crucial parts of patent documents. The claim is to be written as a single albeit very complex and long sentence, with a well-specified conceptual, syntactic and stylistic/rhetorical structure that is extremely difficult even for patent experts.

In this paper we report about a tool for drafting patent claims that can be directly used for training patent attorneys and inventors. In working on this tool we have created a model of the professional behavior of a patent expert during the process of patent claim drafting. As a result of this preparatory activity, we have
a) developed the structure and content of the automatic, mixed-initiative interview for eliciting technical knowledge about the claim content
b) designed the appropriate underlying knowledge representation for storing the results of the elicitation process and supporting the text generation activity;
c) compiled a lexicon of words and phrases for expressing elements of the legal patent knowledge; and
d) made the claim generation stage completely automatic.

Our elicitation technique is a domain-dependent automated mixed-initiative interview. All user-computer communication is done in a natural language (English). The knowledge acquisition scenario follows the steps of human claim composition and consists of the system requesting the user to supply information about the invention. Using common graphical interface tools (mouse support, dialogue boxes, menus, templates and slide bars) the tool draws the user through a procedure of describing every essential feature of the invention. It provides content, composition and terminology maintenance support through the choices of standing and pull-down menus. The result of the interactive acquisition stage is a shallow claim content representation, which can be considered a draft to be automatically revised into the final text of the claim. The tool then goes through a fully automatic claim generation step and presents the user with the claim which is semantically correct and syntactically legal (e.g., consists of a single complex sentence).

The drafting tool is implemented in two modes: verbose and professional. The verbose mode is recommended for a beginner. It guides a trainee through a step-by-step drafting procedure. The initiative in the verbose scenario is mainly for the computer. The professional mode is designed for an advanced trainee. The initiative in the professional scenario is mainly for the human. The professional mode allows for more speed and flexibility when drafting a claim, - the user may freely navigate among the stages of claim composition, drafting them in any order.

Keywords:

Training, drafting tool, patent claim, interactivity.