High-Impact Role-Play: Novel vs Prior Art with Sample Dialogue for Patent Disclosure Interviews

1) Concept Framing with Micro-Models

In a patent disclosure interview, you are not telling a full technical story; you are guiding the attorney to three pillars: what existed, what is new, and why the difference matters. Think of novelty and prior art as two contrasting snapshots.

• Prior Art (What existed): This is the publicly available knowledge before your filing date—papers, products, standards, patents, blog posts, open-source repositories. In plain English, it is the baseline the world already knows. When you speak about prior art, you anchor your explanation with recognizable references and limit claims to what those sources actually teach. Avoid vague phrases like “people have done this for years.” Instead, use grounded, neutral language that an attorney can verify.

• Novelty (What’s new): This is the specific feature or combination that did not exist in the prior art. The language here must be crisp, not poetic. Novel elements should be framed as discrete, checkable differences—parameters, sequences, thresholds, architectures, workflows, or constraints. Think in claims-like units: “a method that includes X,” “a system comprising Y,” “a non-transitory medium storing instructions to perform Z.” The tone is factual and specific.

• Why it matters (Non-obvious significance): Novelty is the what; significance is the why. Patentability often depends on whether a skilled person would have found your difference obvious to try. You help your attorney by explaining any unexpected results, performance deltas, or practical advantages. Use comparative statements that are measurable: “reduces memory by 35% at equal accuracy,” “avoids a calibration step,” “enables real-time updates under 50 ms latency.” This converts your insight into legal leverage.

A micro-model you can keep in your head is the three-beat cue: Prior Art → Difference → Consequence. Every time you answer, try to include all three beats. For example: “Existing systems index only A and B (prior art). We add a dynamic C that updates per request (difference). That change removes the batch job and cuts staleness from hours to seconds (consequence).” This structure support is attorney-friendly and testable.

Another micro-model is the 90-second embodiment pitch using problem–solution–advantage. The purpose is not to oversimplify; it is to compress the complex into an audition-ready narrative that maps to potential claims. Keep your verbs precise and your nouns stable. Time yourself when practicing; aim to speak in short, declarative sentences so each element stands out: the problem you solved, the specific mechanism of your solution, and the measurable advantage that suggests non-obviousness.

Finally, control your counterfactuals. When you explain novelty, you are implicitly answering: “What would a skilled person have done absent your insight?” Be careful not to gift the examiner an argument for obviousness. You can acknowledge related directions but clarify obstacles and practical deterrents. Words like “counterintuitive,” “contrary to standard guidance,” or “teaches away” can be powerful when accurate and justified by evidence.

2) Core Dialogue Scaffold and Sample Script

Use a reusable scaffold to keep your responses aligned with attorney questioning. The sequence is: Context → Prior Art Anchor → Novel Element(s) → Embodiment → Evidence/Advantages → Implementability → Next Steps. Speak in compact blocks and use consistent signposting phrases so the attorney can take clean notes.

• Context: Provide the narrow problem setting and constraints. Mention environment, users, and failure modes. Keep it one or two sentences that create a clear mental frame.

• Prior Art Anchor: Identify representative approaches, not the entire literature. Describe what they do, not your critique. Emphasize the typical pipeline or architecture, including assumptions and limits. This anchor creates the baseline.

• Novel Element(s): Name the difference in claims-like form. Be explicit about the component, the parameter, and the interaction. If there are multiple differences, enumerate them and clarify which is core and which are optional enhancements.

• Embodiment: Describe a concrete, end-to-end instantiation of your method or system. This should include inputs, processing steps, outputs, and any feedback loop. Focus on operational verbs: “receives,” “generates,” “updates,” “dispatches.” The embodiment helps the attorney imagine independent and dependent claims.

• Evidence/Advantages: Bring measurable deltas or qualitative benefits tied to operational constraints: speed, cost, accuracy, energy, reliability, maintainability, scalability, or safety. If metrics are not finalized, describe directional evidence or pilot results, and explain why the improvement is unexpected.

• Implementability: Address whether a skilled person could build it without undue experimentation. Mention the minimal skill set and standard toolchain. Confirm that there are no hidden secret sauce steps that contradict your earlier statements. This section reduces enablement risk.

• Next Steps: Suggest prior art searches, confirm which embodiments are critical, discuss variants you are comfortable disclosing, and flag any trade-secret boundaries. This guides the attorney’s workflow.

Within this scaffold, expect three high-frequency prompts and keep ready-made answer shapes.

• “How is this different from X?” Answer shape: “X performs A and B under condition C. Our method introduces D at stage E, which changes F. That difference yields G under constraint H.”

• “Could a grad student implement it?” Answer shape: “Yes, with K skills and L tools, following M steps. The only non-trivial part is N, which we resolve by O. Total time P–Q weeks.”

• “What’s the unexpected result?” Answer shape: “Standard guidance suggests R would degrade S if we introduce T. However, by coupling U and V, we observe W, which contradicts the expectation and persists across Y conditions.”

Speak slowly and use consistent linguistic markers: “In the prior art,” “The novelty is,” “In our embodiment,” “We observe,” “A skilled person could.” These phrases help the attorney map your speech to claim sections and legal standards.

3) Targeted Drills (Call-and-Response + Compression Drill)

Targeted drills build fluency so your answers come out clean under pressure. Two drills are especially effective: the call-and-response prompt drill and the 90-second compression drill.

• Call-and-Response Prompt Drill: Train against the most common attorney prompts so your muscle memory forms around the three-beat structure. You should practice converting every prompt into the Prior Art → Difference → Consequence form. Keep your responses short (20–40 seconds) and modular. If you hear “How is this different from X?” immediately produce the anchor for X, then pivot to the novel mechanism, and close with a measurable or operational outcome. If asked, “Would a skilled person combine A and B?” acknowledge the combinability question but articulate friction: missing interfaces, incentive misalignment, or adverse trade-offs. Always end with a concrete effect, not a general statement.

• Compression Drill for the Embodiment Pitch (<90 seconds): The goal is to deliver a complete, claims-like embodiment with problem–solution–advantage. Set a timer. Speak in five compact segments: Problem context (one sentence), Prior Art anchor (one sentence), Novel mechanism (two sentences), Embodiment steps (two to three sentences), Measurable advantage (one to two sentences). Cut filler words. Replace adjectives with quantities or operational verbs. Avoid speculative language unless it’s clearly framed as future work. This drill conditions you to avoid rabbit holes and to preserve the logical line that attorneys need for claim drafting.

During both drills, monitor four quality signals: precision (terms are used consistently), testability (claims are falsifiable or measurable), composability (each piece can stand alone in a claim), and enablement (a skilled person could implement). If any signal degrades, pause and refine your term definitions. For instance, if you use “dynamic,” define what changes, when, and by what trigger. If you say “real-time,” quantify the latency window.

4) Role-Play with Feedback Rubric and Transfer Task

Role-play simulates the attorney interview and reveals gaps in your readiness. Treat the session as a structured performance mapped to a rubric. The interviewer asks high-frequency prompts and challenges your novelty. Your aim is to demonstrate control of the scaffold while showing evidence of non-obviousness and implementability.

Use a feedback rubric with the following lenses:

• Scaffold adherence: Did you move clearly through Context → Prior Art Anchor → Novel Element(s) → Embodiment → Evidence/Advantages → Implementability → Next Steps without skipping elements or mixing them?

• Novelty clarity: Could the listener repeat the exact novel element(s) back to you in claims-like language? If not, your signal is muddy. Check your nouns and verbs.

• Obviousness resistance: Did you articulate why a skilled person would not naturally reach your solution? Look for “teaches away,” practical friction, or unexpected results. Ensure your explanation relies on grounded facts, not rhetorical force.

• Evidence quality: Are your advantages quantifiable or at least operationally clear? Prefer ranges and thresholds over adjectives. Tie benefits to constraints that matter in the field.

• Enablement: Would a grad student with standard tools replicate the embodiment? If there is a sensitive calibration step or proprietary dataset, clarify the minimum viable substitute so the claim remains enabled.

• Brevity with completeness: Did you fit a coherent embodiment into 90 seconds without sacrificing key steps? Overlong responses suggest unclear structure; very short ones suggest missing detail.

• Terminology discipline: Did you define each specialized term on first use and keep it consistent? Terminology drift confuses claim drafting and invites misinterpretation in prosecution.

During the role-play, be ready for pressure tests:

• Scope creep: The interviewer may push you to include variants. Distinguish core from optional elements. Use phrases like “In some embodiments” for optional pieces and “In one embodiment” for the core.

• Prior art collisions: If the interviewer mentions a close reference, re-run the three-beat analysis. State exactly where the reference stops and where yours begins. If the difference is small, emphasize the surprising advantage or the enabling constraint that prior art did not solve.

• Implementation doubts: When asked whether it is buildable, give a short plan of steps and tools. If there is a hidden dependency, disclose it to your attorney and frame it as a design choice rather than a mysterious black box. This heads off enablement objections.

• Claim strategy awareness: While you are not drafting claims, your explanations should hint at potential independent and dependent structures. Independent claim: your core mechanism and its effect. Dependent claims: parameter ranges, alternative triggers, fallback modes, special cases. Speaking in modular units helps the attorney see claim families.

After the role-play, perform a transfer task: write a one-page memo using the scaffold that your attorney could directly convert into a claims outline. Keep the memo in the same order as your spoken scaffold. Include one diagram if helpful, with labeled stages that match your verbal terms. This memo consolidates your language into a reusable artifact, improving consistency across meetings and filings.

Throughout this process, remember your strategic objective: help the attorney build a defensible, clear boundary around what is new and why it matters. Avoid overselling broad generalities; instead, deliver specific, reproducible differences linked to concrete outcomes. Use the micro-models to stay concise and the scaffold to stay complete. Over multiple practice cycles, your explanations will become sharper, faster, and more aligned with the questions counsel must answer to secure robust protection.