How to perform patentability search?

It is highly recommended to do a patentability search because it helps one identify the closest prior arts to an invention.

Below points are the ways of how to perform Patentability search:

• Understand the objective of the patent search: The search needs to be conducted worldwide in both patent and non-patent literature. If your idea has already been patented or even published anywhere around the world, it means that your invention/idea does not meet the requirements of patentability, it will be rejected.

• Requirements of patentability: Every country has their patentability requirements. However, a few of the requirements are common in every country that includes the idea that s should not be abstract, should be novel/ unique and should be none obvious. Further, few countries have additional requirements such as industrial application of the product/invention.

• Invention disclosure: As a client, this is a statement containing background, drawings, description of drawings, advantages of the idea/product that you need to provide to the company performing the novelty search. The invention disclosure further includes details of the already known products/ information. This is a highly confidential document and needs to be submitted to the patent attorney only signing the NDA.

• Keyword-based-searches: Making broad and narrow research using various paid and non-paid databases. Further, the search needs to be performed in the newspapers, magazines, dissertations and other reports from around the world to confirm the patentability of the invention/ idea.

• Classification search: Every patent office has categorized the patent into various classes. Recently, most of the countries have come on board to use a standard classification for categorizing patents known as CPC. Classification search helps in identifying the relevant patents easily.

• Assignee, Inventor, Citation-Analysis, Professional Companies do a thorough search by identifying prior art using various techniques and strategies. Search strategies include performing searches on assignee, inventor and citation analysis of relevant results.

• Non-patent searches: Generally, when coming up with patent ideas, it is not good to only depend on patent searches. The search should also be performed on non-patent literature such as published information like journal articles, conference papers, and marketing information, as these may also act as an obstacle in getting a patent.

• Legal opinions: After having all the steps followed, you now come to an end where you need to analyze results and decide on which references are closer to yours.