The information produced by the Human Genome Project and related research is expected to revolutionize biology and medicine in general and recombinant DNA technology in particular. At present, however, obtaining patent protection for inventions involving recombinant DNA technology is an acknowledged bottleneck in the development of the U.S. biotechnology industry. While much attention has been focused on the problems that occur during prosecution of patent applications, little has been focused on the quality of those applications. This research will assess the technical feasibility of developing a knowledge-based expert system for facilitating the authoring of recombinant DNA invention disclosures. The purpose of the software is to improve the quality of international and U.S. patent applications for the purpose of reducing the duration of their pendency and associated uncertainty regarding the scope of their claims. International and U.S. invention disclosure requirements will be reviewed to provide a basis for development of a software requirements specification. object-oriented programming techniques will then be used to prepare high- and low-level software design documentation. Finally, a software prototype will be constructed and subjected to alpha testing.
