After prosecuting patents for more than 20 years, Steven Lundberg, founding partner of Schwegman, Lundberg & Woessner, a midsize IP firm of more than 80 lawyers headquartered in Minneapolis, has given in to his entrepreneurial urge. With the help of a software developer in nearby St. Paul, and more than half a million dollars invested by his firm, Lundberg has created ClaimBot, a software program that categorizes patents by their claims. The software took three years to develop, and Schwegman, Lundberg clients already swear by it. This month a separate company set up and owned by the firm’s partners will start marketing the software to other law firms and to corporations.
As Lundberg says, “Most of what’s in a patent is generic description, but it’s the claims that tell you what the specific innovation is.” ClaimBot illustrates detailed information about each patent claim on a chart, called a Panoramic Claim Map. The patents, divided up into independent claims, are listed on a horizontal axis at the top, while the technical descriptions, called limitations, are listed vertically on the left side, creating a Bingo-like grid. One reads the map by starting with a patent claim at the top and moving down the column. Darkened boxes in the column indicate the attributes or limitations of the patent.
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