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Topic: CAD program for drafting own figures? (Read 1973 times) |
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BotchedExperiment
Newbie
Posts: 34
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CAD program for drafting own figures?
« on: Apr 24th, 2007, 9:32pm » |
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I'm writing patent applications for simple mechanical devices and am thinking about drafting my own figures.
Is there a single most popular CAD program that draftsman use?
Also, have any of you tried drafting your own figures (I read somewhere that one of you (Maybe Jim Ivey) drafts his own figures but in software, it's mostly boxes with text)?
Since I'd be charging a flat rate for pages of figures, I'm wondering whether the learning curve is so steep that it would take months for it to start being cost effective.
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Repeating experiments since 1998.
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TataBoxInhibitor
Full Member
Posts: 456
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Re: CAD program for drafting own figures?
« Reply #1 on: Apr 24th, 2007, 10:01pm » |
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I mainly use PowerCADD. It has a huge amount of cross-hatching templates. Sometimes I will use AutoSketch, Photoshop and Illustrator. AutoDesk is also a good program for very basic mechanical inventions, integrated circuits etc.
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patentsusa
Junior Member
Posts: 81
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Re: CAD program for drafting own figures?
« Reply #2 on: Apr 24th, 2007, 10:46pm » |
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A lot of practitioners who are doing their own drawings use Visio but they are mostly just doing flowcharts.
I prefer to use a good patent draftsman.
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Deepak Malhotra, JD, BSEE
Registered Patent Attorney
Malhotra Law Firm
www.patentsusa.com
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JimIvey
Moderator
Senior Member
 
Posts: 2584
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Re: CAD program for drafting own figures?
« Reply #3 on: Apr 25th, 2007, 10:31am » |
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I use StarOffice/OpenOffice.org (OOo). OOo is free, works on pretty much all platforms (I run a Linux shop here) and the drawing program rivals, equals, or perhaps surpasses Visio. I've been getting better and better and, at the risk of seeming immodest, continually impress myself. I suppose kudos go to the OOo community moreso than to myself.
Add to all that the one-button export to PDF for eFiling, and I see no reason to consider anything else.
Regards.
P.S. I wanted to include an example of drawings I've done in OOo, but couldn't think of any. I've just discovered that one issued yesterday: U.S. Patent 7,209,139. It's not on Google Patents yet, but you can use your patent downloader/viewer of choice when the patent becomes available.
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| « Last Edit: Apr 25th, 2007, 11:01am by JimIvey » |
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James D. Ivey
Law Offices of James D. Ivey
http://www.iveylaw.com
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Jonathan
Full Member
Posts: 611
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Re: CAD program for drafting own figures?
« Reply #4 on: Apr 25th, 2007, 1:05pm » |
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Fig. 14 is very nice.. 
I use SmartDraw myself, not by choice, but it is pretty robust. It's not free and also is "canvas-based." Basically there is one huge desktop with page boundary delineations. There is no inserting or deleting of individual pages - that's my major beef with it but I am able to work around that one fault.
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