You are a burgeoning entrepreneur working at a health IT start-up. You hear all the time how frustrated health
care professionals are with the lack of interoperability in the world of healthcare data. You have a brilliant idea
and will be submitting a request for a patent. Look up some existing patents and follow the format to create the
patent request for your billion-dollar idea focused on the population perspective.
How to find patents:
Google Patents (Links to an external site.) is a great place to start. Search within that site for similar ideas or
types of patents. Patents are very long documents with many sections that I don't expect you to be able to
create. See below for the sections that you should focus on for your submission.
What to submit:
Your patent should be about 3-5 pages including the following sections:
• Abstract: This is a summary of what problem you are solving and how your product will do that
• Images: This section contains any diagrams you may have showing either a physical product and/or how your
product links to a database, mobile devices, servers, desktop computers, etc. Put workflow diagrams here, too.
There is a section for "Descriptions of drawings." Sometimes it is after the description of the invention. You can
add yours here in this section if you prefer.
• Description:
o Cross-reference to related applications: Include this if your product will interface with other existing
applications (EHR, HIE, wearable, etc.). A list will do.
o Background and Summary of the Invention: This is the place to describe your product in detail. Describe the
gap that your product will fill in the market. Don't worry about finding something that no one has done before,
this is about the process of taking what you have learned about databases and consider how a database could
be used to solve a problem related to interoperability.
• Claims: This is where you describe exactly what you think your product will be able to do.
• Patent Citations: Mention any similar patents or ones you use as a reference
Sample Solution