Because the research and development work is affected by the actual needs, many inventions only get an ideal embodiment or find a specific implementation, which leads to a single claim and a narrow scope of protection when writing a patent application, and it is difficult to obtain diversified claims or patent applications.
The scope of protection is naturally limited, and the restrictions on competitors are inevitably insufficient. This is not only difficult to effectively crowd out and restrict competitors, but also unable to increase the added value of R&D. On the contrary, it may give technical enlightenment to competitors and "guide" competitors to surpass themselves.
The existing patent application mode has not paid enough attention to this, no matter in the layout of patent application or the layout of claims. "Claims should actively protect your innovative ideas, not passively protect the specific practices you think of".
A good patent layout can make the "idea" of the invention dominate the whole situation. It is an effective way to protect the "technical conception" of the invention rather than a single technical scheme by analyzing the essence of the invention, making patent layout.
Extended layout method is a patent layout for a series of technical schemes to realize the technical idea of invention. Its essence is "making the invention essential, making the scheme essential, making the scheme concrete and diversified". Through the analysis of the technical scheme (possibly one or more embodiments) of the invention itself, the core invention points are abstractly summarized.
The essential orientation of conceptual invention-the technical thought of invention; If the conceptualized invention can be transformed into an abstract technical scheme that meets the protection requirements of the patent law, it will constitute the core patent of the invention as an independent application, and "unlimited invention scheme" will be defined by "limited claim"; If the conceptualized invention points cannot constitute an abstract technical solution.
Then it evolved into a series of technical solutions that can realize the essence of the invention (including the technical solution of the invention itself), and a number of sub-patents were formed according to the obtained series of technical solutions.