Apologies for length of the question.
This question is a continuation on the results of this other question Detailed description of a system to suit system and method claims
Notice too I'm the guy of this other question Patent Without an Attorney, What are the Risks? and I'm trying to write myself the description of my invention, then before 12 months after filing get a patent lawyer to review my claims or write different ones. So my description writing is a bit speculative to what final claims will be used. I have written some claims myself but I expect them to be rewritten within a year.
I finished writing a description of a computer implemented system. As I described it I've been talking about “embodiments of the system” all the time. Now I wanted to add some language to the description to be able to support method claims. I'm a bit confused to what “language” may be required.
I have some thoughts about how to introduce this method language in the description. It would be great if someone could comment on them, or point out the right way of introducing this language.
a) Describe as a method all what I have already described as a system and that involves steps of some sort. I have many flowcharts in the description, maybe I can re-describe them as a method. If I do that, shall I do it interlaced with the system description or shall I start a new section and describe all again as a method.
b) Describe as a method only the human performed steps of the described system. Meaning the actions that a user would perform to use the system.
c) Forget about the method claims and use only system claims, or use system claims and claims starting with “ A computer-implemented process for...” In this case my current description language could already support both system claims and computer-implemented process claims.
d) Just add the word “method” to the title, so that reads something like “system and method for...”. Then in the description add the word “method” to some of the places where I had system, so that now they are “system and method”. It sounds a bit weird though to refer to “embodiments of a system and method”.
Related with my thought d) I've seen some patents that have the word “method” in the title and then have method claims, but they don't really use the word method in the description, they actually describe flowcharts but talk about a system. I made a search in the USPTO database http://patft1.uspto.gov and search for patents that have the word “method” in the title, but do not have the word “method” in the description. ie. ttl/method andnot spec/method This search results in 39713 hits!!! I checked a few of them and effectively they had “method” in the title and method claims but no references to methods in the description. Were all these people lazy? Or is it understood that if you describe something that can be interpreted as a method then I can claim it as a method regardless of specific language with the “method” word in the description?