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Do patents help a petition?

Key answer

A patent by itself is weak evidence: officers reply that millions of patents are issued and issuance does not equal value. Patents work when paired with proof of adoption and impact - letters from companies using the technology, commercialization, citations. If your employer holds the patent, your inventorship must be visible in the documents.

Community answers

The answers below are translated from the original Russian - the language of the community chats.

  • Keep in mind: regarding patents, there have been instances where they wanted to see implementation and commercialization - 'millions of patents are issued annually, the fact of issuance does not equal value.' The same goes for code and open projects: it is important to show dissemination and impact.

  • I had intellectual property on code, but it did not pass by itself without letters. The point of the letters is to confirm that your patent or code had a real impact.

  • If you developed it, you should be listed as an author, while the patent holder can be a company - this can be explained with letters from them. Any other explanations are weaker.

The answers are anonymized community experience from the public chats, not legal advice. Officers may decide similar cases differently.

Why "Original contribution" gets refused

Accepted in 4% of challenged petitions (9 of 209); not an approval rate.

Influence on the field as a whole is not shown. Adoption inside one company reads to the officer as a benefit to the employer, not a contribution to the field.

All refusal grounds and the sample

Sources

All questions on: Original contributionAll questions on: IT professionals

Related on this site

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A reference page built from community experience, not legal advice. Requirements and practice change - verify on uscis.gov.

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