Patent filing is not only expensive but also a time-consuming task. As a result, businesses may often hesitate to proceed with filing patents, ultimately hampering their growth and ability to remain competitive in the market. So, to resolve this issue, one must strengthen their patent prosecution strategy before entering the patent filing game. This can be done by using patentability search, which reduces the time and cost involved in the patent protection process.

The following article explains why it is important for businesses to conduct patentability searches to improve patent protection and minimize related expenses. But first, let’s understand the benefits of a patentability search.

Benefits of a Patentability Search

A patentability search, also popularly known as a novelty or prior-art search, can help one steer clear of obstacles pertaining to patent protection. Such searches are conducted in single or multiple jurisdictions depending on the business objective. A patentability search increases the possibility of successfully obtaining a patent grant in-one-go. This is because the process involves scouring the large databases of patent and non-patent literature to find similarities between the said invention and any active patents. It prevents innovators from pursuing an invention that already exists, as an application for similar innovation can be rejected for not being novel.

Apart from enhancing the value of a patent application, conducting a patentability search also has several other benefits. The points pertaining to the same are highlighted in the figure below.

1. Assists in Drafting and Selecting Claim Boundary

Filing for a patent with a broad set of claims is never a good idea because the chances of overlap with existing patents are much higher. That is why it is essential to clearly define claim boundaries so that the application successfully passes the examination stage.

To help with this requirement, patentability searches play a critical role. A comprehensive patentability search enables innovators to understand the current state of patentability of their invention. This further helps them in understanding context-based keywords used in prior-arts. Therefore, it allows one to develop and execute a well-planned patent prosecution strategy.

2. Acts as a Filter for Choosing the Best Innovation

This benefit specifically pertains to IP-centric companies with strong R&D teams. Such companies usually work on more than one innovation at a time and file for multiple patents simultaneously. However, many patents that organizations file for may get rejected. This can lead to hefty financial losses in the form of sunk investments. Therefore, it is important to conduct a patentability search to identify which innovations are the most non-obvious and novel.

In such cases, a knock-out patentability search can be used. It provides a comprehensive patentability search report but within a lesser turnaround time. Armed with such reports, one can filter patents that have higher chances of rejection. As a result, the organization can cut down on the cost of patent filing as well as reduce investment into R&D projects that have lower success rates. These resources can then be re-allocated to more promising R&D projects.

Conclusion

Patentability searches can help patent attorneys to save their crucial time while preparing patent applications. Thereafter, they can use this time in formulating a patent prosecution strategy. Furthermore, with an exhaustive patentability search report, patent attorneys can offer a better view on the fate of a patent application to respective innovators.

Sagacious IP offers highly reliable and accurate patentability searches to businesses. Our highly experienced analysts use custom-designed artificial intelligence interfaces for patent searches which can help organizations save nearly 33% on patent search costs.

-Rohit Kumar, Rajat Gulati (Engineering Searching) and the Editorial Team

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