Author: Aindrila Mitra

You’re building something big, something new—and you want to protect it. So, like any smart founder, you start with a patent search. You look around the landscape to see what’s already out there. Who’s filed what. Where you stand. But here’s where things go sideways for a lot of startups: they stop there. They think…

Most founders are shocked when they find out how much a simple patent filing can end up costing—especially when the hidden fees start piling up. One of the worst offenders? The Information Disclosure Statement, or IDS. It sounds harmless, but if you’re not careful, it can quietly rack up hundreds or even thousands of dollars…

If you’re building something valuable—especially something technical—there’s a good chance it’s worth protecting. Filing a patent is one way to do that. But if you’ve ever looked into how patents work, you’ve probably stumbled across the MPEP. It sounds like legal soup. We get it. What Is MPEP 609—and Why Should You Care? If you’re…

If your startup is filing patents in more than one country, you’re already juggling a lot. And when one of those patents gets an update—like a new office action from Europe, Japan, or anywhere else—that change needs to be reported back to the USPTO through something called an Information Disclosure Statement, or IDS. Why Foreign…

If you’re building something new—especially in deep tech—there’s a good chance you’re sitting on gold. But when it comes time to file a patent, that gold can turn into a minefield. One of the trickiest traps? The IDS bomb. Why Founders Overload the IDS—and Why It Backfires It starts with fear—of missing something If you’re…

Let’s say you’re building something big. Maybe it’s a breakthrough in AI, a powerful new hardware design, or a smarter way to process data. You know it matters. You know it’s new. And you know you need to protect it. Why Most Prior Art Searches Miss the Point Too Much Focus on Keywords, Not Concepts…

Most inventors don’t think much about non-patent literature (NPL). But when it comes to filing a strong patent, this stuff really matters. NPL isn’t just some boring technical paper. It could be a research article. A product manual. A white paper from a competitor. Even a blog post. If it helps explain your invention—or challenges…

Filing your first patent is just the beginning of protecting what you’re building. As your product evolves, so should your patent strategy. That’s where continuations and CIPs come into play—they let you extend coverage, protect improvements, and keep competitors from getting too close. But there’s a critical piece most founders overlook: prior art. Why Continuations…

Most startups don’t think about patents until it’s urgent—and when they finally do, they expect the process to be smooth. But pulling prior art from foreign patent offices into a U.S. Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) is still clunky, slow, and full of room for mistakes. Even with tools like Global Dossier, it’s still way too…

Getting a patent is not just about having a great idea. It’s also about handling a pile of paperwork—and doing it right. One of the biggest pain points for startup founders, engineers, and inventors is the PTO/SB/08 form. It sounds like government code (because it is), but it’s basically a list of other patents and…