Patent US 6,049,811

A machine and method for drafting a patent application has a keyboard, mouse, display, printer, and a computer for receiving and transmitting data. The computer requests and stores information regarding the invention including, if appropriate: 1) qualities and benefits (QAB) of the invention over the prior technology; 2) primary elements (PE) of the invention that define the invention apart form prior technology; 3) secondary elements (SE) of the invention that may be important but not necessary to define over the prior technology; and 4) substitute elements (SUB) of the invention that may substituted or modified in an effort to avoid the primary and secondary elements but not depart from the invention. The QAB are requested and stored before the objects of the invention are drafted, the PE are requested and stored before the independent claims are drafted, the SE and SUB are requested and stored before the dependent claims are drafted, the independent claims are drafted before the summary of the invention is drafted, the independent claims are drafted before the dependent claims are drafted, the dependent claims are drafted before the abstract of the disclosure is drafted, and all claims are drafted before the detailed description of a preferred embodiment is drafted. The sections are drafted in a predetermined order prohibiting jumping ahead to draft a later section. At many sections, initial draft text, examples, samples, legal material, etc. are available to the user. A final patent application is compiled by combining the drafted sections with predetermined text.