InventionIP

It's very exhilarating to bring a product to market, but it does carry certain risks. Arguably the least valued risk is patent infringement.  Even for a technological invention, you can face litigation in the event a party holds patents for elements of your technology, procedure, or design. That's where a freedom to operate (FTO) search comes in. It determines if your product can be sold, utilized, or produced for your targeted market without infringing on any patents. In this in-depth resource, we are going to outline what an FTO search is, why it is important, conducting a good one, things to avoid, and real-life examples. What is a Freedom to Operate (FTO) Search? A freedom to operate search is a commercial patent search. Its purpose is to establish whether a product may legally be commercialized in a particular market without infringing on technology that is patented. While a patentability search tries the question "can I patent such a device?", an FTO search tr...

As soon as an inventor has a new idea, the question at the forefront of everyone's mind is whether it can be patented.  A patentability search exists to provide an answer to that question by screening whether an invention is novel and non-obvious relative to what currently exists.  The process entails searching prior patents, applications, and technical publications to decide if filing a patent application is the worth pursuing. A good patentability search will save inventors time, money, and effort.  It can also make a patent application stronger by identifying what exactly is novel about an invention.  In this article, we will discuss the process of conducting a patentability search, include examples, mention typical pitfalls, and cover frequently asked questions. What Is a Patentability Search? A patentability search is an organized probe into published patents, pending patents, and non-patent literature to find out whether an invention is novel.  Patent of...