Several ratings systems count the number of claims in a patent. Sometimes they compare the ratio of independent to dependent claims too. Does this really have any meaning?
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MT13
Date: Jan 9, 2009
Does looking at the dependent claims from a "scoring perspective" really matter? I'm not a patent attorney, but I always focus on the independent claims when time is critical.
Just my 2 cents!
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Anonymous
Date: Jan 25, 2009
Patents with a large number of independent claims tend to provide more flexibility and degrees of freedom when litigating a patent. Buyers of patents tend to like numbers in terms of patents related to the same technology (15-20), families, and number of independent claims. A single patent with 1 independent claim tends not to get much attention.
