Companies must consider the patents of other companies. Understanding each competitor’s patent rights helps to avoid patent infringement, but the advantages of diving into competitor patent portfolios go much deeper. Creating patent benchmarking reports that compare patent data and USPTO...
A patent validity or patent invalidation search is one that is performed to determine the validity of claims. The steps for performing a validity search and an invalidation search are similar. The only difference is who is interested in conducting...
Assigning a Team/Research Team When your firm/organization receives a search request for an invalidity search, the very first step is to investigate the domain of the patent to be invalidated as well as all of the client’s instructions. Then, a...
What is Prior Art? Any proof that your innovation is already known is referred to as “prior art.” Prior art does not have to be physically present or commercially available. It is sufficient that someone, somewhere, sometime previously described, demonstrated,...
Novelty Search A patent search, also known as a novelty search, patentability search, or prior art search, is a search to find citations of similar nature to that of one’s invention. Google Patents, Espacenet, Orbit Intelligence, Thomson Innovation, CNIPA, J-PLATPAT,...
Why do We Need a Patentability Search? Before releasing a new product into the market, one should consider the following: Can a patent protect an inventor’s invention? Does an individual’s invention infringe on the invention of another? Searching can assist...