Technological evolution has completely transformed the way of doing business in today’s fiercely competitive environment.
Survival of the organizations and companies in this environment is relied on the constant technological developments to retain themselves in the marathon of offering the best solutions to the users at budget-friendly prices with maximum profits.
But, these constant and quick technical developments require huge investment and ROI is often not confirmed. Ofcourse, big organizations can afford such mammoth expenses but hot possible for scale organizations.
In this way, businesses having financial limitations are left behind in this race, and their survival chances are often less to none if they don’t get success to provide a better product to their customers at cost-effective prices with higher profits.
The weak financial status of such organizations is the biggest roadblock in building high-quality product or service. Here patent invalidity search comes in the role to safeguard your organization.
What Exactly is an Invalidity Search?
Patent invalidation search is also termed as opposition search used to identify the patent and non-patent literature. Patent invalidation is a tool that an organization or an individual can use to decrease the technological supremacy of their rivals by invalidating their patents.
Thus, patent watch service and invalidity search are the two vital tools that help you diminish competitors’ patents and analyze their technological developments.
The main motto of patent invalidation is to identify any prior art that might be missed by the USPTO auditor, to invalidate a patent. It is a deep search of dedicated and right prior arts after the patent has been permitted. Opposition search is also used to validate patent’s claims. The negative outcomes of such search depict that the patent has claims that don’t fall under the legal exception, has inventive steps, and retains novelty.
Invalidity search also establishes the solidity of patents and enhance its strength too. Having a strong patent portfolio helps you get the potential for generating revenue via statutory licensing.
However, it is not similar to prior art search conducted at the initial earlier stages of patenting. Instead, invalidity search helps you focus on the claim language and save your time focusing on the overall idea and concept of the innovation.
A validity search may be conducted to pro-actively access patent validity, to identify the risks and attackers that challenge the patent of a subject, or when there is no lawsuit has been filed.
Let’s Check Some Tips for Conducting an Invalidity Search:
Know the Subject:
It is vital to know what the patent and technical issues are. One more vital point to consider during validity search is claim interpretation. As we know that validity searches conducted on patents allowed and examined properly, deep interpretation of all such claims is essential to understand the right art.
The relevant reading of prosecution history and file wrapper at the beginning of the search will assist with a clear and easy-to-understand interpretation of claims that require invalidation.
Concentrate on the Details:
Generally, invalidity search needs analysis of the literature documents and loads of patents by examiners and searchers. The detailed analysis of searchers might incorporate the evaluation of chemical formulas, tables, texts, figures, and transformation units. The examiner must bring focus on relevant matters like dependent claims according to the case needs.
Search Broadly:
Lots of vital business decisions are dependent upon validity and invalidity searches. Irrespective of your business size, the missed prior-art could cost millions in your product development cost or patent infringement suits. So, the searchers should search broadly to the best possible extent and be innovative in developing strategies and using all available resources. It is good to start with prior work such as opposition proceedings, prosecution histories, litigation proceedings, and patent office search reports.
Know When to Stop:
Invalidity search doesn’t last for a long time. However, you must be aware of the stop point according to the time constraints and budget of the project. By knowing these constraints, it becomes easier to develop a proper search strategy accordingly.
Report What the Client Requires:
For invalidity search providers, it is vital to report the results in an easy-to-understand and concise way. In this manner, one can easily understand all references found in the search, even if some are not relevant; but, these results tend to be nothing for the client, so that should be avoided.
A report including bibliographic information and an explanation of the searched references may fulfil the requirements and are sufficient.
Additionally, searchers should report to their clients in a non-characterizing manner as their comments could wrap up being utilized against the client and turn out in an unwanted result. Paten watch and invalidity search service are the latest tools for an organization to safeguard their patents and succeeding revenue generation perspective.
Any organization or individual who wants to sustain and grow in today’s competitive era must use patent watch and invalidity search service as the strongest tool.