By: Josh Sloat

If there were a guidebook we could hand to inventors on the first day following the conception of their idea, this episode would be it. 

When is it safe to talk about or sell your invention? How do you hedge against invalidation and rejection from competitor IP? How do you ensure you actually own your invention?

In this month’s episode, Dr. Ashley Sloat, President and Director of Patent Strategy at Aurora, leads a discussion along with our all star patent panel, exploring the most common patenting missteps taken by inventors and startups. The focus largely centers around three key areas: 
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• Disclosure. Publicly disclosing your invention before you have filed a patent application. 
• Search. Not searching to see if your invention or something similar already exists commercially or in publicly available resources.  
• Ownership. Not carefully contracting with outside vendors and employees to make sure you own your invention.

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The group highlights best practices for not making the mistakes in the first place and explores available remedial options should you already be in need of a rescue line.

Ashley is also joined today by our always exceptional group of IP experts including:

• Kristen Hansen, Patent Strategist at Aurora
  
• Ty Davis, Patent Strategy Associate at Aurora
  
• David Jackrel, President of Jackrel Consulting

​Patently Strategic is available on all major podcasting directories, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. We're also available on 12 other directories including Stitcher, iHeart Radio, and TuneIn, so you should be able to find us wherever you listen to podcasts.

If you’re an agent or attorney and would like to be part of the discussion or an inventor with a topic you’d like to hear discussed, please reach out.​

By: Josh Sloat

​Join us December 8th online for my next MasterClass with our good friends at InnovatorMD! We'll be discussing how to make stronger, more robust life science patents.

In recent years, life science patents have grown increasingly vulnerable to rejection and invalidation due to judicial interpretations around the patent law concepts of subject matter eligibility and invention enablement. A retired US Court of Appeals Chief Justice has described the resulting environment as an “illogical, unpredictable, chaotic” mess.

The practical implications are staggering. When it comes to eligible subject matter, in the last five years, over 80% of abandoned life science applications had a final rejection from the USPTO stating that the innovation did not include patentable subject matter. As for enablement, case law is now littered with patents whose innovator’s ideas proved to be revolutionary, but whose patent claims ended up invalidated because they failed to demonstrate in their applications how their observations could be practically applied or failed to prove that they deserved the breadth of coverage they sought.

In this talk, we’ll help you make sense of the present state of the law, explore how you can avoid these common rejections, and provide some very practical tips for creating stronger, more robust life science patents. 

​InnovatorMD's mission is to globally advance the work of physician innovators and entrepreneurs delivering solutions that revolutionize patient care. They are a group of physician innovators from various backgrounds with a single vision - to spread physician innovation to the rest of the world and to have a positive impact on patient outcomes and physician wellness while moving the healthcare industry forward.