In the most broadest sense, at the time you write the Provisional Patent Draft, and at minimum, the inventor needs to write down in his own words what he or she actually claims what the product will do. The ManMotor claims in the broadest sense simply recite that the ManMotor uses the weight, effort and movement provided by a human being to rotate wheels that are acted upon by other physical elements producing an end result of stored useable electrical energy.
How that is accomplished will be written upon and detailed in further claims, but for now we can format the first pages of the actual Provisional Patent Draft for the ManMotor.
The Electrociser is another invention with it's own broadest claim that translates human weight and motion into rotational energy used to power the ManMotor. So for now the combination of the two in the inventors mind is necessary, but not necessary to detail greatly within the Provisional Draft for the ManMotor.
The follwing statements are directly from the Manual Of Patent Examining Procedure and must be followed exactly.
35 U.S.C. 111 Application.
(b) PROVISIONAL APPLICATION. --- (1) AUTHORIZATION.--- A provisional application for patent shall be made or authorized to be made by the inventor, except as otherwise provided in this title, in writing to the Director. Such application shall include---
(A) a specification as prescribed by the first paragraph of section 112 of this title ; (B) a drawing as prescribed by section 113 of this title ; and (C) an oath by the applicant as prescribed by section 115 of this title. 35 U.S.C. 112 Specification.
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
35 U.S.C. 113 Drawings.
The applicant shall furnish a drawing where necessary for the understanding of the subject matter sought to be patented. When the nature of such subject matter admits of illustration by a drawing and the applicant has not furnished such a drawing, the Director may require it's submission within the time period of not less than two months from the sending of a notice thereof. Drawings submitted after the filing date of the application may not be used (i) to overcome any insufficiency of the specification due to lack of an enabling disclosure or otherwise inadequate disclosure therein, or (ii) to suppliment the original disclosure thereof for the purpose of interpretation of the scope of any claim.
(2) CLAIM.--- A claim, as required by the second through fifth paragraphs of section 112, shall not be required in a provisional application. NOTE : There are six paragraphs to section 112, the first and last only pertain to the provisional.
35 U.S.C. 112 Specification ;paragraph six.
An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
There are other parts to these rules that can be read upon in the MANUAL OF PATENT EXAMINING PROCEDURE and for now we don't need any other complicated information to successfully write the provisional draft. Your patent attorney will fill you in on the FEE requirement and I believe now for an independent inventor it costs around $130.00 to file the paperwork in the U.S.P.T.O. .
35 U.S.C. 115 Oath of applicant.
The applicant shall make an oath that he believes himself to be the original and first inventor of the process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or improvement thereof, for which he solicits a patent ; and shall state of what country he is a citizen. Such oath may be made before any person within the United States authorized by law to administer oaths, or, when made in a foreign country, before any diplomatic or consular office of the United States authorized to administer oaths, or before any officer having an official seal and authorized to administer oaths in the foreign country in which the aplicant may be, whose authority is proved by certificate of a diplomatic or consular officer of the United States, or apostille of an official designated by a foreign country which, by treaty or convention, accords like effect to apostilles of designated officials in the United States. Such oath is valid if it complies with the laws of the state or country where made. When the application is made as provided in this title by a person other than the inventor, the oath may be so varied in form that it can be made by him. For purposes of this section, a consular office shall include any United States citizen serving overseas, authorized to perform notarial functions pursuant to section 1750 of the Revised Statutes,as amended (22 U.S.C. 4221).
It seems the real benefit of this text is for you to save money, even after you write your provisional patent draft it may cost you to have an attorney file it for you. You really don't need that expence in the filing of it, however if you don't really understand these rules and techniques for writing the original patent draft you may miss something important that an experienced attorney may pick up on and write it into the text of the patent application at a later date and after you have reduced your product to practice. It is also a good idea to go through the follow up design phase of the invention before you have your attorney write the Patent Application Draft that includes the claims.
This is important to do, follow up design phase. What this allows an inventor to do is to get the patent pending status on the invention first, in provisional form and as soon as possible after all the text and initial patent drawings are completed. From the date the provisional patent application is recieved at the USPTO via express mail the inventor will be able to label any physical embodiments of his or her invention "patent pending". That is a must to put and allow everyone to know that your product is in the patent pending stage. This way if the product starts selling really well if a U.S. Patent Application is allowed a patent on the invention later on in a couple of years, then if you follow all the rules to the letter then you can claim the original filing date of the provisional on your patent, which is very valuable to an inventor that has made a very successful product from his invention. So the reduction to practice is necessary "after" the provisional patent application is received by the USPTO. Now you can build the prototype of your invention and mark it patent pending and take it to a manufacturer and have them reduce the product to practice and that will cost you from the royalties. So in the design of your new and usefull invention product and past the provisional patent application you will need to really try to design your product so it can be manufactured with the least amount of steps possible. After the first run off the manufacturing line, and most likely four months need to go by at the reduction to practice phase in the manufacturing facility some things on your product may cause a problem after the product has been used for awhile. It gets down to even a nut on a bolt that is causing a problem. That nut will and can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in recalls, so after the product has been refined in the manufacturing process to find all the short cuts involved in making the product more efficiently, then the follow up design phase is when you go back in and solve the problems and or costly items involved. What you are after is the product that does the same as others in the field of the invention yours is in, but yours costs less to the end user than the other products due to you have refined the manufacturing process for your invention and, worked out all the bugs before you apply for a U.S. Patent. This assures you that your product if successfull will be an income for you for the next 20 years after the patent is allowed.
WRITING THE PROVISIONAL PATENT DRAFT USING THE INVENTORS CLAIM :
At this point in the invention process the inventor must review "all" of his or her notes that are available, and that had been written in text prior to the writing of the provisional patent draft by the inventor. Now is the time for us to review the 18 Patent Drawings referred to as Fig.(s) that embody the inventive subject matter, and the subject matter disclosed for the ManMotor Project. Also we must re read 40 additional element drawings that recite subject matter for the present invention. This includes 218 elements in point, 54 pages of written text also needs re read that contains 23,800 words in the file ManMotor. Needless to say we have written this information in the order that an inventor sees it to be, and including ;
(1) the reasons that the inventor has for investing hundreds of hours working, toward the completion of the project, to the tangible product the U.S. Patent claims read upon ;
(2) the reason that the inventor had thought the idea, for inventing the product from his project ;
(3) a complete summary of the invention written within the specification of the patent application ;
(4) a complete summary as to the intended usage of the tangible product to come and where the inventor interprets it can go within the next twenty years ;
(5) a complete summary as to the advantages the inventor will contend his or her new invention will accomplish or overcome in the prior art associated within the field of the inventors new invention ;
(6) a complete summary of the disadvantages of prior art within the field of the invention ;
(7) scetches that are sized in porportion to the intended final product size anticipated ; and
(8) a complete set of claims written by the inventor.
INVENTORS CLAIM
I claim a mechanical machine made of wheels, pulleys, and belts that are all intended to rotate together from the effort provided from a human being, and a supprt framework capable of supporting these elements safely while in their dynamic form.
I claim a result of electrical energy that is stored in elements of storage and a method to achive that accumulation of useable electrical energy.
Now thats absolutely as simple as the inventor can get the invention described, and is precisely what your patent attorney will need also, when he or she is writing your Patent Application Draft, remember this is not the Provisional Patent Draft but the actual Patent Application that is written from the claims your attorney will draft later on.
This is about it for the claim issues for now, the reason this needs to be done is for the inventor to clearly understand in it's simplest terms what he or she is actually interpreting the invention to be.
Note : Do not attempt to make cheezy prototypes of your invention until all of these steps have already taken place and only after the Provisional Patent Specification for the invention has been received via Express Mail at the USPTO office and then has been recorded so you can mark your prototype "Patent Pending".