In this conversation, Tom Giesler shares his journey from a passion for precise line art to building and leading patent illustration services at MaxVal. He reflects on the rewards of problem-solving, teaching, navigating evolving PTO standards, and thoughtfully embracing new tools like AI while staying rooted in quality and clarity.
Sam Joseph: Can you tell us about your background and what initially drew you to the field of intellectual property illustrations? How has your career evolved since then?
Tom Giesler: To be honest, when I started as an illustrator, I had never heard of a patent draftsman or seen a patent illustration. I studied art and technical writing in college and worked in all the usual media: paint, sculpture, textiles, etc., but it was pen-and-ink drawings that truly hooked me. They didn’t have the bells and whistles of other media, but I loved the precision and directness of the lines. I enjoyed the challenge of creating form and volume and conveying a message with simple black line art. And while many of my friends jumped into web design, 3D modeling, and animation, I stuck with what I loved: black-and-white line drawings.
My work as a patent illustrator began at a medical device company called HeartPort. I started there doing IT support and some graphic design using Adobe Illustrator. One day, I came across a pile of patent drawings on one of the attorneys’ desks. I was smitten! I’d never seen drawings like that before and was blown away by the craftsmanship and precision of the figures. Back then, patent drawings were created by hand, and the process was slow and costly: an attorney would send informal drawings to the draftsman via FedEx, who would then send back the first draft of formal figures, which the attorney would mark up and send back via FedEx again. You get the idea.
But these were the early days of the web. I had started using email and knew how to create PDFs of my artwork. I convinced the attorneys that I could do the drawings digitally, email them as PDFs, and zip revisions back and forth in seconds. It blew their minds!
I was in the right place at the right time, with the right skills. As my reputation grew, I saw an opportunity to teach others and eventually built my own firm. Shortly after, I joined MaxVal as employee number three and started the company’s first service division. Now, almost 20 years later, I still love the work, the teaching, and helping clients tell the stories of their inventions with simple line art.
Sam Joseph: What factors have motivated you to remain in the IP space? Are there particular aspects of this field that you find especially rewarding or challenging?
Tom Giesler: I love problem-solving, and in this work, that means taking a complicated concept or set of instructions and making everything crystal clear through illustrations. Teaching and training are also incredibly rewarding. I’ve taught more than 40 people how to do this type of work over the years, and I take pride every time someone I’ve trained tackles a challenging drawing project successfully.
I especially get excited when someone I’ve taught to illustrate teaches me a new trick or tool I hadn’t seen. When the student becomes a teacher—that’s just icing on the cake!
Sam Joseph: What are some of the biggest challenges facing IP professionals today? And how are they responding to these challenges?
Tom Giesler: One of the biggest challenges I face—and have faced for the last 30 years—is the ever-evolving PTO drawing review. The actual drawing rules haven’t changed much, but their interpretation is always shifting. Inevitably, just as my team and I are in a groove, we’ll receive an office action that runs counter to some core part of how we work. We don’t panic or drastically overhaul our methodology. Instead, we carefully monitor office actions over time and wait for consistent patterns to appear before updating our methods. That way, we ensure any changes we make are well-founded and effective.
Sam Joseph: In your opinion, what major changes or trends do you foresee in the IP landscape over the next five to ten years? How do you think these developments will impact professionals in the field?
Tom Giesler: The elephant in the room is obviously AI. Its impact on patent drawings in the near term remains uncertain. AI can be useful for simple flowcharts and diagrams, but I haven’t found a tool we can trust for formalizing figures for US and PCT filings. While I’m always open to tools that increase efficiency, there’s too much liability in handing moderate-to-complex figures to AI. From our experience, it takes just as much time to review and edit AI-generated drawings as it does for my team to create perfect drawings from scratch—and when my team does the drawings, I know the PTO will accept them.
Concluding statement
Tom Giesler: I never get bored with my work as a patent illustrator! There’s always something new crossing my desk that piques my interest, keeps me engaged, and challenges me to figure things out. My favorite part is taking a complicated project with a client and turning it into clear, simple drawings that capture the essence of their invention. I take immense pride in that process. Rules may change, and new tools may appear, but at the end of the day, I love helping clients bring their ideas to life.
