Patent Search

Many inventors say to us that they have seen nothing like their idea, and decide not to do a search. In many of those cases, a patent examiner will find prior art that is equivalent or close to their idea. Those who are worldwide experts in the field of their invention are best positioned to determine whether it is novel or not, but nevertheless, they are often surprised at how much prior art we find. In the cases where we do find damaging prior art, it often spurs the inventor on to come up with an even better idea...

The graph below shows how a patent search usually progresses. We usually stop searching when the rate at which prior art is found begins to flatten out. In the vast majority of cases, we find prior art that impacts at least part of an invention.

It is impractical to do a perfect search, due to documents being difficult to access, in foreign languages, or not widely published. There is always a risk that the inventiveness of an idea will be reduced in the future, either by a patent examiner or by a hostile party wishing to invalidate a granted patent. The effort required to perform invalidation searches may be ten or a hundred times greater than an initial patentability search. It's not worth expending this amount of effort before applying for a patent.

Prior Art Search, Novelty Search or Patentability Search

This is a search to help determine whether an invention is patentable. Patent databases from major countries are searched. Depending on the topic, the web and academic references may be included in the search.

Infringement Search

This is a search to help determine whether a product or process is infringing a current patent.

Freedom to Operate Search

This is a search that goes further than an infringement search, in that expired patents will be searched that correspond to the product or process in question.

Validity Search

This is a search to help attack an existing patent, such as a patent that is being used against you. The owner of the patent may be accusing you of infringement, requesting too high a royalty, or asking you to cease and desist operations.

Bespoke Searches

Searching can be tailored to your needs. We can arrange for manual searches at the USPTO, searching additional databases, state or the art searches, extensive patent landscape searches and corresponding reporting, white space searches to reveal gaps where inventive activity may be possible, etc...

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