Patent Search - Researching Patents

An effective patent search is a wise investment of your time and money.

Your Own Research

As a first step you should attempt to peform your own research using publicly available search engines such as esp@cenet provided by the Europeaon Patent Office. This will enable you to:

• quickly check out any new idea to see if anyone else has already patented it;
• verify the patent status of ideas submitted to you for development (if you are a potential developer); and
• save lots of money in legal fees.

A typical approach to starting your own research is with some keyword searching. After you have found relevant publications, you can then look at what patent classifications are assigned the publications you think are relevant and then perform further searches within these patent classifications.

Professional Patent Searching Assistance

After you have invested a bit of time in performing your own research it is then wise to consider engaging patent search experts to perform to undertake professional research. A professional patent searcher can leverage the results of your research to:

• define the current state of the art before embarking on a research program;
• assess the likelihood of your idea being patentable over the existing publications;
• explore the way patents are written to clarify the scope of an invention; and
• assess the likelihood of planned commercial activities infringing existing patents.