Be it a new invention thought of in a backyard or garage, or an organization with established infrastructure, patents are the first and most fruitful mode of protection for your invention. A novelty search helps you realize if your invention is patentable or not. The primary purpose of conducting the patentability search or novelty search is to confirm if the process or the product that is invented is novel in nature and henceforth can be patented. More simply put, a patentability search (or novelty search) is performed to search for anything relevant to the invention in question that already exists, thus acting as prior art. This is the preliminary test that has to be carried out before filing a patent application.
The results of patentability search (or novelty) helps in patent drafting to ensure that claims of the patent are not too broad so as to overlap with the existing prior art and not too narrow to miss the coverage. The results of the patentability search can be given as citations while filing your patent for the concerned invention.
A novelty search helps one confirm whether an invention (subject matter) is novel or new (patentable) and whether it has been disclosed to the public by any means.
Though open-source databases can help reveal some initial findings of available prior arts, a novelty search is done by professionals can help you dig deeper and discover the relevant results. IP professionals have access to commercial databases dedicated to intellectual property searching, resulting in ingress to large collections of prior-arts from multiple geographies across the world and make available foreign language literature as well. This helps in a wide and thorough coverage of the prior art.
Knowing the relevant prior art beforehand, helps you cite them accordingly in your invention disclosure application and helps speed up the examination procedure by the concerned intellectual property office.
A novelty search can help decision making regarding the research and development of technology to test the strength of their product and avoid infringement lawsuits.
A novelty search for patentable subject matter functions as a preliminary search for more expansive searches such as State of the Art search, Patent Landscape or Technology Research. It gives a fair estimate of the novel and nonobviousness parts of your invention.
Signicent – Technology, IP & Market Research has delivered a large number of patentability searches (novelty search) reports to clients all over the world and across various domains successfully. Our experienced searching team conducts and delivers searches thoroughly using:
We deliver searches conducted globally using professional patent databases that cover patents from foreign languages, full-text authorities besides the open-source/ free databases.
Besides patent databases, we search for products, articles, Scientific Literature (NPL) & Research Article Search through journals, non-patent literature databases, product catalogues, blogs, videos, news, trade shows to name a few.
To uncover all relevant prior arts, we search for citations (both backward and forward) of the relevant results. Through professional IP databases, we conduct similarity searches for the relevant records as well.
Our comprehensive searches include detailed search strings using relevant keywords and class codes (such as IPC/CPC/PCL/ECLA and JP F-TERM). Besides, assignee searches for competitors and significant inventors having patents in the concerned field of the invention are also examined.
Signicent submits detailed analysis reports in customer-centric formats. We offer quick turnaround times and expedited searches on a case to case basis. Moreover, interim reports can be requested as per the client’s requirement on a rolling basis. Get in touch with us today!