Editorial policy

Patent Law Joe publishes free guides, summaries of new patent decisions and practice questions for people building a career in patent law. This page explains where the facts come from, how we use AI, and how we correct mistakes.

Sources

• Facts come from primary and official sources: statutes, regulations, the USPTO’s own pages and manuals, and court and agency decisions. For law school and bar admission we use the ABA’s accrediting section and the National Conference of Bar Examiners’ guide to the jurisdictions’ rules.
• Every guide lists its sources with the date we read them, and each section says which source supports it.
• We do not rely on blogs, law-firm articles or other commentary for facts.
• Figures about pay and the job market come from our own job board, and we say how they are counted.

How we use AI

• Guides are written with AI from facts gathered, with quotations, from the official sources each guide cites, and each section names the source that supports it. Each guide names its editor, Joseph M. Baillargeon, a registered patent attorney, and shows the date its facts were last checked against the sources.
• Guides on new decisions may be published before a person has read them. They are written with AI from the decision and the statutes, rules and leading opinions on its subject, saved word for word from official sources, and published only after a second AI model, from a different company and with no access to the web, checks every statement against those saved sources and finds no error. Such a guide says so above its first paragraph (“not yet reviewed by our editor”) and names no editor. Once Joseph M. Baillargeon has read it, it shows him as its editor; if he finds a problem, we correct it or take it down.
• Case summaries are written with AI from the decision itself. Since October 2026 each new summary is checked by code before it is published: the quotation it gives and every case number and reporter citation it names must appear in the decision. The check needs the decision’s text, so it cannot run on a scanned page that has none. Older summaries were not checked this way, and each post says how its summary was made. A few archive entries show only the official listing. Each post links to the official opinion or order, which is the authority. Read the decision before relying on a summary.
• Practice questions are drafted with AI from the exam’s source materials and then answered blind by a second AI model; a question is kept only when that check reaches the same answer and finds one defensible choice. Our rule is that the checker comes from a different company than the writer. Most of the current bank was checked, as a one-time exception, by a model from the same company, and we plan to recheck those questions; the free sample questions all passed a check by a different company’s model.

Reviewed “Why it matters” notes

• Some decisions get a human step: precedential Federal Circuit opinions and orders, PTAB precedential and informative designations, Director Review decisions, ITC Commission final determinations and opinions, and any other post we choose.
• For each, an AI model drafts a one- or two-sentence “Why it matters” note from our summary. Code then checks that the draft names no case, statute, number, quotation or other name the summary does not contain. Joseph M. Baillargeon, a registered patent attorney, approves the note as written, edits it, or skips it.
• Only an approved note appears on the post, marked “Reviewed by” with his name and the date. His review covers that note, read against our summary; it is not a review of every line of the summary, and it is not legal advice. A post without that line has not been reviewed by a person.

Who is responsible

Patent Law Joe is operated by PatentLawJoe LLC. Its editor is Joseph M. Baillargeon, registered patent attorney (USPTO Reg. No. 79,685); his page lists his admissions and how to check them. Views here are his own and not those of any firm or client. Nothing here is legal advice, and reading it creates no attorney-client relationship.

The Friday Patent Report

• Our weekly video newscast and podcast, The Friday Patent Report, is narrated by Professor Joe, a drawn character whose voice is generated by AI. Every episode says so at the start and in its show notes.
• Each script is written with AI from the text of the decisions themselves (our case summaries serve only as a guide), checked sentence by sentence against those decisions by a second AI model from a different company, and approved by a patent attorney before it is voiced.
• Every story links to our summary and to the official decision. The episode page carries the full transcript.
• The show is news and education. It never discusses our own matters or clients and never answers a viewer’s legal question.

Updates and corrections

• Each guide shows when its facts were last checked. Rules, fees and exam details change; we recheck guides periodically and whenever we learn a source has changed.
• If you find a mistake, email corrections@patentlawprofessor.com with the page and the source that shows the error. We correct confirmed errors promptly and update the page’s checked date.

Not legal advice

Everything here is general information about the law and about careers, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. For advice about your own situation, consult a lawyer or registered practitioner.

Independence

Our guides point to our own courses, job board and email lists where they help the reader. We do not accept payment to mention or rank another company’s products, and comparisons with other providers state only facts those providers publish.

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