In this era of internet resources and free patent databases, is there really a need for patent search by a professional patent analyst……? See how a professional search by a patent analyst or a patent attorney can make a difference.
Many a time, inventors will do a few Google searches on their inventive idea and when they don’t find anything similar, it makes them confident that they have stumbled upon the NEXT BIG THING…….Eureka. Almost Every time, inventors tell us that they “haven’t found anything like it,” but chances are that they haven’t been looking in the right places.
Securing a patent for an inventive concept is a long process, which needs significant investment of money and time. Before investing additional money and resources, it’s always suggested and advisable to find out whether the invention is unique, if there is a market for it, and to explore on how to make it better.
Patent Analyst or Patent Attorney helps the inventors and investors in searching the invention related prior arts using public and subscripttion based databases with a goal to find similar products or patents or publications that are available in the market or public domain, attempting to solve the same problem as the proposed invention.
Some investors and inventors believe in searching the patent office on their own, but as the inventor is so attached to the invention that the approach of search is very narrow. When professionals search the invention they have customized strategies for patent search, which include
- Key words or synonyms-One of the basic or rudimentary step of literature search involves listing of key terms and its synonyms with possible truncations or wildcards while formulating a search query. Constantly striving to go beyond simple keyword search with the aim to grasp the core ideas of the proposed invention helps in identifying relevant references.
- In fact, the relevant patents may have been filed in different field or application areas as against the one being proposed in the invention. Hence, a keyword search alone—in all probability—will not yield all the relevant patents. A search around patent concepts has a better chance of unearthing such relevant patents.
- The entire patent database is first searched with broad key strings to extract the relevant key concepts from each patent document
- Further searching the database with a combination of keyword and patent classification (CPC, IPC and USPC) yields relevant results
- Key concepts and relevant class codes for the concept helps to understand the prevalence as well as proximity of several concepts and class codes. Understanding the relation of the various concepts and class codes aids in the formulation of a comprehensive search strategy.
Combining these search strategy results are obtained and then they are compiled.
A professional patent service provider (Einfolge) will provide an objective insight to the patent search; he/she can see the minute difference that lies between the closest patent available and the invention. They compare the proposed invention with the patented results obtained and suggest different possible ways to improve it. The patent professional can technically suggest how the proposed invention is different from prior arts and what is novel in the invention which does not exist in prior arts. The inventor can further proceed reinforcing these aspects of proposed invention.
This shows how a patent search by experienced attorney or a patent analyst can make a difference and how it helps in standing far better chance of grant a patent. Proper prior art citations when referred in a patent application, helps the examiner to understand the novelty and non-obviousness of the invention in light of the prior arts thereby accelerating the examination process.
