PASS originally began as AdhEYa Systems a subsidiary of Speridian Technologies in 2007. The transition to PASS-Patent Attorney Support Services was made a few years ago to better enable potential clients to see exactly what we do by looking at our name. More recently the decision was made to rebrand the company to PatentAlign - not to eliminate PASS - but to reflect our close ties to our parent company, Speridian Technologies, and its lineup of 'Align' products and services. That is why PASS and PatentAlign are often used interchangeably, but mean the same thing – high quality, low-cost Patent Attorney Support Services.

The PatentAlign business model is based on Legal Process Outsourcing/Offshoring (LPO), which began in the early 90's as some law firms and companies realized significant business cost reductions could be achieved by establishing branches or subcontracting legal work to lower cost centers overseas. At the time, market for outsourced legal work was projected to increase in India from $146 million in 2006 to $640 million by 2010. The current literature seems to suggest that LPO continues to grow as companies and IP law firms continue to look for ways to work more efficiently and cost effectively. For further details on the growth of LPO and opinions by the ABA and various bar associations on offshoring legal work, see the LPO Articles/References link on this page.

The Pass difference:

PatentAlign/PASS is a LPO company with a unique model that sets us apart from many other LPO companies performing work in India. This includes:

  • We are a United States Company based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, easily reachable in the US should problems arise;
  • We keep our costs exceedingly low because we are a company made up of technical experts trained in patent drafting. We do not use higher-priced Indian attorneys;
  • We are located in the city of Trivandrum in the state of Kerala, a relatively low-cost area when compared to the larger Indian cities like Mumbai or Delhi;
  • We have completed over 1,000 projects including patent drafting, patent searches, drawings, trademark searches, office action responses and patent-related research for numerous clients throughout the U.S., Canada and India.
  • We have an extremely sophisticated security protocol in place to protect your clients' disclosures;
  • We have an export control and conflict of interest protocol in place to protect our clients from running afoul of the Export Administration Regulations and various Bar Association's Rules of Professional Conduct;
  • We have fixed prices in place or provide a quote ahead of time so you always know and approve the cost of the work before we start;
  • We will make revisions to the end product within the original scope of the project at no additional charge to you;
  • We provide a time-tested process to assess the work, quote the price and provide an estimated completion date normally within 48 hours of receiving the disclosure;
  • We use a password-protected ftp site for the secure transfer of patent disclosure information from you and the secure transfer of the completed work to you, regardless of the size of the files or your location;
  • We have an excellent track record of mirroring our clients' patent drafting style to reduce the amount of re-work required once the projects completed.

For those interested in our services but reluctant to make a commitment, you can easily try out our services with no risk and no obligation to send us additional work. This is a foolproof way to assess whether our services are right for you.

What does this mean to you?

This means there is an established process to assist you in cost-effectively managing and growing your business.

IP Law Firms/Solo Practioners/Patent Agents:

PASS provides the support services for your business to allow you/your staff to spend more time on higher-value tasks such as litigation or marketing. Based on feedback from our current clients, patent drafting time-savings of 50% or more is is common compared with performing that same work themselves. Instead of spending days drafting a patent application, a few hours is required to review and revise the drafts we provide. This has enabled our clients to take on additional business that they might normally have to turn away. PASS also provides:

  • Assistance with patent applications or office actions with tight time frames;
  • Assistance with overflow work, smoothing out the workload;
  • Assistance with unfamiliar technology areas;
  • Assistance with skill shortages in patent writing and producing drawings;
  • Assistance in reducing overhead costs.

Corporate IP Counsels

As with any other department in a corporation, IP counsels are challenged with reducing operating costs while still getting the work done. Costs are particularly high for those companies that outsource patent prosecution work to U.S. firms. They become captive of the often high hourly rates of those firms. Those companies that keep patent prosecution work in-house also face high overhead costs, along with the challenge of uneven workloads where the staff are either too busy or do not have enough work to do. PASS can help by:

  • Providing a low-cost draft patent application to those companies that outsource patent prosecution, significantly reducing the hours outside firms need to spend on that work, resulting in significantly reduced patent-related costs;
  • Providing low-cost searches, normally in less than a week;
  • Reducing in-house staff hours required for patent-related work;
  • Smoothing the workload by assisting with work overloads and/or tight time constraints;
  • Reducing the overall cost of patent-related work by 50% or more;