Patent Law

The following is a list of the most commonly used preambles based on an analysis of the first listed claim of the 2.1 million patent applications that have been published by the USPTO. Although the most common preambles are quite generic, the listed top-26 preambles represent fewer than 5% of the published applications.

When is it better to use the generic "a method" preamble verses a more detailed preamble such as a "method for content selection of digital media stored in a memory coupled to a digital media processor and playable on a digital audio-visual playback device"?

About 25% of the first-listed claims were directed toward some type of method or process.

Most Common Preambles

1. A method
2. An apparatus
3. A semiconductor device
4. A system
5. A composition
6. An image forming apparatus
7. A device
8. A display device
9. A semiconductor memory device
10. A liquid crystal display device
11. A pharmaceutical composition
12. An integrated circuit
13. An image processing apparatus
14. An electronic device
15. A computer-implemented method
16. An isolated nucleic acid molecule
17. A computer system
18. A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device
19. An information processing apparatus
20. An isolated polynucleotide
21. A liquid crystal display
22. A memory device
23. Apparatus
24. An article
25. A circuit
26. An isolated polypeptide