Patent Validity Searches in the USA and Canada

While an invalidity search is carried out by a defendant to render a patent-ineligible by conducting a prior art search, the validity search is carried out by the assignee/plaintiff after the grant of a patent to guarantee that the patent granted is valid and enforceable.

The main goal of the validity and invalidity search is to find prior art that could potentially call into question the novelty or non-obviousness of the referred patent. In order to find prior art references that predate the patent's priority, an exhaustive search of the patent and non-patent literature is required for an invalidity/validity analysis.

 

The validity searches in the USA and Canada are conducted to establish the solidity of a patent portfolio which may be useful for licensing or company acquisition. More specifically a validity search is important for the following reasons:

 

·         Assessment of patent portfolio is imperative in a buy or sell scenario

·         Acquisition of patents

·         Patent monetization

·         Fixing appropriate royalty/ licensing mechanism

·         IP due diligence process

 

These searches are carried out to find pertinent patent and non-patent literatures that are consistent with the claims of the subject patent. These prior arts are advantageous if they are published before the subject patent's priority date. While conducting a validation search the prosecution history of the patent is also taken into consideration.  

 

The steps generally used in conducting a validity search in the USA and Canada: 

 

1. Identification of the claim(s) of the patent that is needed to validate.
2. Identification of the prior art for the claims that are to be challenged.

(A) In-depth search for prior art from patent literature (that are generally not searched by the patent examiner).

(B) In-depth search for prior art from non-patent literature and other relevant sources.

 

How InventionIP can assist you in the validity searches in USA and Canada

We assist Businesses, Corporates, and Law firms globally in their validity search needs; our experienced team has a complete understanding of the validity searches for our clients in the USA and Canada to prepare the search reports.Our validation search has the broadest possible search result; we include all the closest patent and non-patent literatures.More specifically our patent database searches are conducted in a very systematic manner, we precisely go through “File wrappers”, “Forward-backward”, and precise key feature/words/strings after making a complete understanding of the invention. Our inclusion list of a Validity search report contains a Project overview, key features, relevant references list with detailed mapping, and search strategy.For more information please visit www.inventionIP.com or drop any query at info@inventionip.com