Skip to main content

Innovation - What is a prior art patent search and why it is important?

Innovation:

What is a prior art patent search and why it is important?

Prior art search:

Prior art refers to scientific and technical information that exists before the effective date of a given patent application. Prior art may be found in any public documents such as patents, technical publications, conference papers, marketing brochures, products, devices, equipment, processes and materials.

A prior art search refers to an organized review of prior art contained in public documents. Prior art searches can be of various kinds:

  • Patentability searches conducted by an inventor before filing a patent application;
  • Invalidity searches in litigation conducted by the accused infringer; 
  • Patent examination searches conducted by a government examiner in order to determine whether to grant or reject a patent application
  • and State of-the-art searches for information in a technical field. 


In all cases, searches are conducted using different kinds of databases, from public databases of issued patents on the Internet to exhaustive databases including technical literature.

Searches can be done by legal professionals, by scientists or by researchers.
Sometimes, defendants in patent litigation even offer bounties for invalidating prior art.


Why it is important:

A patent agent or inventor is not required to search for prior art. However, there may be advantages to performing a search in some cases. A prior art patentability search may be conducted before the filing of a patent application to gauge the prospects of obtaining broad claim coverage.

The purpose of conducting such a search is to find references related to the claimed invention in order to make an assessment of its patentability.

Prior art searches are a good way to get information on developments in the field of invention. Prior art searches may sometimes reveal what competitors consider worth protecting. Search results may be a critical factor in deciding whether to file a patent application. If a prior art search reveals references that anticipate the claimed invention, the inventor and the patent agent should consider how they can “avoid the prior art” by drafting the claims to overcome it.

If this is not possible, they may wish to consider whether filing the patent application is still appropriate. In some cases, a prior art search may reveal patent references that are problematic. Just because you see a reference that seems similar to the invention does not mean the proposed application should be abandoned. The prior art may instead warrant a “design around” effort to see how the claims of the new application can be changed to avoid the prior art.



So to identify what is out there similar to proposed idea to avoid the time and money loss for patent filing as well as to identify any alternative way to design to avoid the prior art in the claims!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Innovation - Point to consider for writing an idea

Innovation - Point to consider for writing an idea Here is the list of points to write an idea: Title of the idea Objective Problem statement/Motivation  Scenarios in the problem  Explain the problem with an example Write the summary of the Proposed solution Write a detailed solution by covering all scenarios  Create a logical flow of information for the solution State what is Novel in the idea  While working these points you can also do a search on web for any existing solution for prior art. Once you are sure that there is noting out there similar to your idea you can contact a professional to write a patent draft for filing to the patent office in legal language which is acceptable or follow the guide line to write one by yourself to file it.

Innovation - Ideation is an Important exercise

Ideation session  Ideation help in triggering more idea!! different people see a problem in different ways and think with their own perspective. this is good thing to leverage to solve any problem. when you want your team or organization to be innovative and create a innovative culture, just go for ideation session on specific problem areas where you want to focus.  how to do an ideation session: - Group the people into small teams(max 5)  - Give the topic or area to think for solution  - Give the background on the topic and why you are looking to work on that topic - Ask to come-up with at least 3 solution and one best solution which they want to consider in evaluation. - set a time frame for to submit their ideas e.g. 2 hr. with documentation e.g. presentation etc. - evaluate the idea. here if you have any constraints they will play important roles in choosing the best solution effectively.  - every solution is a good solution until evaluated against any defin...

Innovation - Listen to the feedback on the idea and think

Feedback or views from others are also important when you are working on an idea. It is important to listen to the feedback from others e.g. reviewers or mentors or domain experts or within the group on the idea and solution you have proposed. These feedback help in improving the idea further and cover other aspects which  you have not thought off. Take the feedback and do a brain storm session on the feedback. if it is a good feed and make sense to your idea work on the feedback to address it in your idea. if you feel that the feedback is not positive and is discourage to you. just avoid it and do not get discouraged by it. Many time it happens that the idea which you have proposed is not considered by the reviewers. in this case ask for the feedback on what is lacking in the idea so you can work on improving it. So the get the feedback from the domain experts/reviewers/ within the group to know their point of view on the idea. Listen to the feedback and think o...