On May 23, 1997, Atlanta inventor Clyde Bryant filed for a U.S. patent on his conception of an improved internal combustion engine. In written descriptions of 26 claims and in 34 pages of diagrams, he disclosed an auto engine that aims not only to burn fuel more cleanly but also to deliver greater torque and higher fuel efficiency than a standard engine. Bryant had already started a company, Entec Engine, to develop the technology, and the business's entire future was wrapped up in this patent application. The process was straightforward enough, costing less than $10,000 in filing fees and legal expenses. But Bryant was immediately confronted with an unavoidable conundrum: because of the global nature of the auto industry, unless he protected his invention worldwide, someone else would be able to patent and market the engine in another country. "The only way to do it was to file everywhere at once," he says.

Bryant's Entec is one of an increasing number of companies stepping into the international patent jungle, where 120 national patent systems challenge inventors with opposing philosophies and examination rules, not to mention translation requirements and separate filing fees. Working with an Atlanta law firm that has an office in Munich, Germany, Bryant learned that failure to file in certain foreign countries soon would result in forfeiting his rights forever. "It's a lot of work to redo the claims for many of these countries," he says.