There is much discussion in the patent world about "high quality" patents. In general, the notion is that such patents claim only that which is truly patentable (i.e. there is no prior art which can be used to invalidate them).

To this definition, we add the requirement that the claims be written broadly and to the business issues of the applicant.

How do we do this? By writing a good disclosure.

We repeat. To have high quality claims, the disclosure must be well-written. The drawings must be organized to start at the broadest view of the invention and only slowly become more detailed. The text must describe each drawing slowly, first orienting the reader to the general concepts shown in the drawing and only afterwards describing them in detail.

The detail is necessary for full disclosure. The broad orientation of the reader is necessary for high quality claiming.

The broad orientation describes a drawing so that a reader can understand generally what is happening in the drawing and how the main elements of the drawing cooperate with each other. Since such orientation is part and parcel of the text, claims (independent and dependent) can be made to it. These claims are broad, since they recite only what an element is trying to achieve. Further dependent claims can be made to the specific implementations shown in the drawings, if desired.

In HBA's applications, these broad orientations exist for most drawings in the application. The discussion of the main drawing discusses the invention in its most general terms, including what it is trying to achieve and why it is wonderful, and is used for the independent claim(s).

Then, for each element of the main drawing, there are more detailed drawings. The discussion of each of these detailed drawings begins with an introduction, introducing the reader to the major parts of the drawing. This discussion is used for the dependent claims.

Finally, there is a detailed discussion of the elements of the drawing. This discussion can be used for further dependent claims or not, depending on how inventive the details are.

The end-product is a broadly claimed application, resulting from our insistence on good writing.