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Inventors describe their experiences:
I needed a quick way to get something out there. I
don't know if I could have gotten the patent pending done [without
it]. TeamPatent helped me tremendously to cut down time and focus.
It's a very innovative tool.
-Roman Montagueo, Trebuchet Tech
Who am I?
I'm founder of a small group of companies based in the Netherlands.
I am also an inventor and have several patent applications, both
pending and granted. Previously I have successfully sold my rights to
the Cable Roller, a handy reel for storing access cable, with now
nearly 8 Million units sold. I have previously written applications
in cooperation with an attorney so I learned some tricks of the
trade. I write my own US applications now because I have multiple
patents pending and want to save on further patent costs.
What was my previous workflow?
I used an outliner to draft the specification/claims then pasted
them into MSWord. I fax (hand sketches/email CAD drawings/etc) to
an illustration company which returns a multi-page PDF containing
figures.
What motivated me to try TeamPatent?
I had a week to file a US patent from start-to-finish so needed
tools to make me more efficient. I'm more used to European-styled
patenting which is less aligned with figures so I was particularly
looking for a tool to help me with this. After a long search for
patent software I found TeamPatent.
How was my workflow different with TeamPatent?
I first wrote the specification/claims in an outliner and pasted it
into TeamPatent using their application skeleton as a guide. At
this point, I hadn't assigned any numbers to the parts. I followed
instructions in TeamPatent's video tutorials to "link" parts in the
text and then automatically assign numbers to parts in the Detailed
Description section. Without TeamPatent, it would have taken me up
12 hours to number the terms, make sure all the callouts were
supported, make sure terms were used consistently, etc. Especially
getting it right can be a pain. With TeamPatent, this took only 2- 3
hours.
I used Ulead photo software to extract each figure from the
multi-page PDF I received from the illustrator. I copied and pasted
into a new Ulead drawing and saved as JPEG. I uploaded these into
TeamPatent as individual figures. I repeated that with JPGs without
numbering. It took then me about 10 minutes to get my nine figures
into the system. I told TeamPatent if it would be great if I could
upload a multipage PDF and they say it's on their roadmap
How much time did I save?
On this first application, I was able to save about a day by using
TeamPatent compared to writing it using MSWord and a drawing
program. Now that I basically know how to use TeamPatent, next time
I write an application I think I'll save more.
How good is TeamPatent's technical support?
I had trouble uploading figures so sent an email to their support
line. I got a response back in eight minutes telling me how to fix
the problem. Another time I couldn't delete callouts. Their
technical support quickly showed me a workaround (which was due to a
bug in their software) and fixed the bug within three hours. All I
had to do was press reload in the browser tab to upgrade the
software. Although not all functions in the interface were
self-evident, the support made the difference.
-Rik Wagter, Opalio
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