Drafting tips: Drawing a structure with words

Case #13 - Calf stretcher

January starts the season for breaking New Year’s Resolutions, many of which involve exercise equipment, like this “calf stretcher.” Fortunately, writing a patent claim for something like this is much easier than actually using it.

The process amounts to drawing the structure with words. But for odd shapes like this, the vocabulary doesn’t quite exist. Instead, you work the way sculptors do: add too much and chisel away what you don’t need.

This device’s shape is a good example. Its underlying form is a circle with two intersecting chords. But much of the circle is missing. And each chord is missing a chunk of its length. On the other hand, we really need to keep the “circle.” Without it, we can’t talk about “chords.”

A bit of syntactic engineering turns the circle and chords into an imaginary skeleton:

“A device having a rocker that follows an arc of a circle that has first and second chords that meet at an angle”

So far, only the “rocker” is real. The circle and its chords are imaginary. They’re not part of the device. But they remain available for construction.

We need to add two other real things: the heel and toe platforms. Once again, we build something real by using our imaginary skeleton:

“and platforms that extend from ends of the rocker partway along the first and second chords, respectively.”

Put these together and it’s a respectable patent claim. And it’s much easier than balancing on that thing.

Disclaimer:

The O&R “Is it patentable?” blog is educational and provides general information about patent law.  It provides no legal advice or conclusions.  O&R uses publicly available information about the products described in these posts and has no relationship with the manufacturers, sellers, or distributors of these products.  Reading this blog and participating in voting on the case studies does not create an attorney-client relationship between the reader and O&R.