Though extremely technical, patent publications are of increasing interest to the general public. In fact, there are now entire websites—such as “Patently Apple” (www.patentlyapple.com)—dedicated to tracking the patent filings of major companies.

This trend, while usually innocuous, can be risky for patent owners, as their patents can be misunderstood, mischaracterized and maligned—a lesson Sony unfortunately learned a few years ago. Sony owns U.S. Pat. No. 8,246,454 to Zalewski, which describes “converting television commercials into interactive network video games.” An article in Fortune called Zalewski “hilarious” but “terrifying.” Why? Zalewski, while illustrating a variety of interactive advertisements, refers to a user being prompted to “Say ‘McDonalds’ to end commercial.” As such, a single figure of Zalewski was enough for an article in Esquire to assert that “life has become ’Idiocracy,’” and that Sony’s patent would read on, for example, a circumstance where “an ad for ‘The Apprentice’ may require you to pick up a motion-detecting controller and comb Donald Trump’s hair with one hand while taking his wallet with Melania’s other hand.” In other words, a one-off, isolated example in Zalewski—probably included by a drafting attorney as an easy, inconsequential example—became national news. Here are three strategies to avoid that disaster happening to your patents.

1. Know Your Audience

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