I've never used SolidWorks for Patent drawings. But, in
College, one assignment was Patent Drawings. So, I used AutoCAD for
the layouts, then I traced over them, in ink, using high quality
tracing paper with preprinted title blocks and added the contour
lines as needed. You might try this method using SolidWorks and/or
the DWGeditor.
Best Regards,
Devon T. Sowell
www.3-ddesignsolutions.com
I am new to SolidWorks and I am trying to make drawings to be
submitted for patents. Under Title 37-Code of Federal Regulations
Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights subsection 1.84 Standards for
drawings, there are allot of rules for these drawings. Specifically
the way they are shaded and need to be displayed for the patent
submission. My questions are: 1. Has anyone used the SolidWorks
drawings for their patent submissions? 2. If yes, how do you shade
it properly to show the contours etc. without using the "shaded "or
"shaded with edges options"? From the drawings I have seen to be
submitted they are very basic almost a "hidden lines removed" view.
However they have some extra contour lines to show dimension but
not nearly as clean or smooth as the "shaded" views. Any advice
would be greatly appreciated.
I've used solidworks for many patent drawings but mainly in
the U.K. I normally put the views I need onto a drawing sheet which
gives me the correct format.
This can then be saved to a image format or pdf and any alterations
required made.
In SW 2008 try the excellent Export to Adobe Illustrator
option. Just set up your drawing sheet (usually A4 portrait for
filing patents), add the views and save as Adobe Illustrator. In
Illustrator (or any other drawing application that reads the .ai
format) you can edit the line types to the specification required.
My experience of this is that different filing agents require
different things. Some let you file drawings pretty much straight
out the CAD system, while others are extremely fussy over line
types and styles (to the extent of insisting on those old style
hand drawn balloons). In the UK and EEC the registered design
process (which registers the shape of the object) is even more
awkward in that you cannot show things like tangent edges.
I was reading a book
How
to Make Patent Drawings, and noticed on page 189 that lead
lines (leaders) can be either curved or straight lines.
Can SolidWorks create a balloon without the bubble around the
number? If so, how is this done? Can leaders be curved as shown in
some patent drawings? The book also indicated that lead lines can
be replaced with an underlined item if it lies on a surface.
I received this response from a fellow Pro-E user:
"
We did a series of patent drawings a few years back. The models
were from Inventor, so we exported the drawings into Autocad.
Autocad is a much better tool for making this type of drawing. You
can easily put whatever type of balloon you want, and we used
splines to create the curved leaders. And since Autocad easily
recognizes all Windows fonts, you can "pretty up" the labels. The
patent attorney will probably tell you what font to use, though.
Then, as someone else mentioned, we turned these into .pdf's so
they could be put into a Word document. I suppose there may be ways
to do this in pro... but I suspect that exporting your drawings
into AutoCad would make the process a lot easier."
I've made drawings for several patents and always used views
directly from SolidWorks drawings. I never bothered with the
sketched-in type of shading and just used plane HLR, both with and
without tangent lines. I used to insert BOM balloons, later
replacing the bubble and leader line with a manually drawn spline.
However, I quickly learned it's easier to just add a text note with
straight leader and no arrow. Based on Kevin's experience, it's
possible I just never ran into a filing agent anal enough to care.
I figure most filing agents just want the drawings to be clear, and
shading is not required in most cases for clarity.
Yes you can turn off the circle around the balloon - select it and
go to the border option in the feature manager - you can choose
from a range of boprders but right at the top is NONE. I don't know
of a way to do curved leaders though. I tend to use Illustrator
once we get into that detail!
I usually just send our Patent Attorney several projections,
iso's, sections, and detail circle pictures of the product in
question in "line art" or "hidden lines removed". I just print out
the drawings as PDF's, and email them. They usually call later if
they need a more specific view. They do all the work of adding the
numbering and text. This is just how it works with us in
general.
I thought that I heard that they recently changed the
requirements for patent drawings to not require the special
formatting that they once used to require. I don't know for sure,
it was just something that I heard at the water cooler.
I've never used SolidWorks for Patent drawings. But, in College, one assignment was Patent Drawings. So, I used AutoCAD for the layouts, then I traced over them, in ink, using high quality tracing paper with preprinted title blocks and added the contour lines as needed. You might try this method using SolidWorks and/or the DWGeditor.
Best Regards,
Devon T. Sowell
www.3-ddesignsolutions.com