This is a transcript from a section of the course “Patents 340 – Invention Rating Checklist,” which is available here at IP.Education.
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Performance Advantage of the Invention
The point of the design around analysis is to analyze our invention in light of the competition.
We want to have an invention that has real, tangible performance advantages over the competition.
In this analysis, the competition is anything that our customer might use instead of our invention.
A level 1 result is that the best design around alternative is superior to the invention.
In this case, the invention is not as good as your competition, so there is no reason to get a patent.
The design around alternative is better.
A level 2 result is that the design around alternative is equivalent to the invention.
In this case as well, the invention is only as good as the design around.
This still is not a very valuable patent.
A level 3 result is that the best design around alternative is missing an important feature of the invention.
Now we have something.
The important feature of our invention may have commercial value.
A level 4 result is that the best design around alternative has a 4x performance advantage, while a level 5 result has a 10x advantage.
These inventions will often have very good commercial value. Now let’s look at the economic value of these performance advantages.