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Patent Search Services

A patent search is a search of existing patents and other publicly available documents to locate the closest existing things to your invention. A patent application is examined by the patent office and can only be issued if the patent examiner is convinced that the invention is new and not an obvious combination of things in the prior art. The data obtained from the patent search is used by the applicants to find related patents. A patent search is the first thing that is done in the process of patent registration. The objective of the patent search is to determine how the invention done is different from what already exists in the prior art. But we must keep in mind that the patent search will not tell us whether your invention infringes someone else's patent or not. Types of patent searches and opinions There are different types of patent searches and opinions not commonly known by many inventors. Below are the four types of patent searches. 1. Novelty or patentability Search Novelty or patentability is the most common search that is requested. This type of search is used to determine the likelihood of getting a patent through USPTO (United trades patent and Trademark Office). Generally, startups or the new inventions will request a novelty search in order to see whether their invention is patentable and worth the money and time to pursue. 2. Freedom to operate search FTO (Freedom to operate) search sometimes known as clearance search operated to determine if the inventor is free to operate the invention without any fear of getting used for infringement. The purpose of the FTO search is not on the disclosure portion of the prior art as in novelty search but the claim portion of the in-force patents found. Because of this reason, Freedom to operate (FTO) searches is tending to be much more complicated.