Verbiage for patent applications

[jmgajus@gmail.com]

I began to complete the provisional patent application using your template and referred to a complete example to get suggestions for the summary.  I noticed that after the initial title, the item was referenced to as "the invention".  Is that the standard protocol?  This may seem like a picky and basic question but I don't want any missteps.

[Brad]

This is a good question.  Many patent attorneys will refer to your idea as "the invention" or "the present invention".   This should be okay but I like to be a little bit careful when using this term.

The reality is your invention may be different things.  For example, if your invention is a chair that may have 3 legs or 4 legs you do not want to write "The invention is a chair that has 3 legs".   It would be better to write  "In some embodiments, the present invention chair comprises 3 legs while in an alternative embodiment the chair comprises 4 legs"

Note I am not referring to the "invention" and instead describing the chair.