Lessons From Doing It Myself I’ve been an inventor on several patents during my time at Microsoft and Clearbrief, but in those cases I had the luxury of patent attorneys handling the heavy lifting. I would describe the idea, write a technical explanation, and then the legal team would transform it into a polished application with claims, formatting, examiner correspondence — the whole package. This time was different. I had an idea I believed was patent‑worthy, but I was completely on my own. No attorneys. No corporate infrastructure. Just me, a blank document, and two AI assistants — Copilot and Gemini — to help me figure out what the USPTO actually expects. What follows is what I wish someone had told me before I started. 1. Validating the Idea (or: Asking AI if I’m Crazy) I began with a short summary and a bulleted list of the core concepts. I asked both Copilot and Gemini whether the idea seemed original and whether it had potential value. Both said yes. That was enough encouragem...