At the American Chemical Society Careers blog, John Borchardt says that "working effectively with patent attorneys can both increase the number of patents you are awarded and improve their quality." To initiate an effective working relationship with patent attorneys, Borchardt suggests getting to know a bit more about their goals, and about the patenting process.
"Patent attorneys usually approach situations with a different mindset than researchers do," he says. While researchers may consider the technicalities of an invention, patent attorneys are typically more interested in "how your competitors will try to legally get around your patent and develop something very similar," Borchardt says.
It's important that researchers understand the patenting process, Borchardt adds. For their part, patent attorneys "may ask questions leading to the inventor to perform additional experiments to broaden the scope of the invention and to support the patent claims that define the invention," he says — that's all part of the process.