Let’s delve into these searches, explaining their differences.

Patentability search: is my idea new?

A patentability search, also known as a novelty search, is an investigation to find out if your brilliant idea is truly one-of-a-kind. This search aims to determine if anyone else has already published your idea, or something similar to it. This is called searching for prior art in patent jargon, where you are investigating the ‘state of the art’.

Prior art includes any public disclosures like patents, published scientific papers, manuals for products, products made and sold, books in libraries and even old articles you found in a dusty corner of the internet.

 Imagine you were the first to have the idea of adding multiple selectable gears to a bike. A patentability search will check if anyone else has previously disclosed this idea. If your idea of using multiple gears on a bike hasn’t been documented and published or used anywhere, you’re in luck—you can likely secure a patent for it.

 How do you find out?

As you will now know, prior art can be patent publications as well as non-patent publications, such as published scientific papers, manuals for products, products made and sold, books in libraries and even old articles you found in a dusty corner of the internet.

Searching for patent prior art can be daunting, especially if you don’t have a lot of experience. So we built Patently for you. With its Natural Language-based Vector AI search, you describe your invention in plain English…

Patently will find relevant patents:

…and sort them to show the most relevant patents first:

Freedom to Operate (FTO) search: can I launch my product?

A freedom to operate search is like investigating the deeds on the Land Registry to determine boundaries before building a house, ensuring you’re not building on someone else’s land. This search aims to determine whether your product or process might infringe on existing, in-force patents.

Continuing with the bicycle example,  what if there’s an existing patent in Italy on the chain mechanism or the frame you plan to use, and Italy is a major market for your multi-gear bike? An FTO search helps you identify such risks, enabling you to make decisions before investing money in putting your new bike on the market.

For example, maybe you will change your frame and/or chain mechanism to avoid these patents; or maybe you will start a dialogue with the owner of the Italian patents for the frame and/or chain mechanism to see if they will sell you the patents or grant you a license; perhaps you can enter into a cross license with the owner for your multi-gear invention.

For more details of how to use Patently to simplify even the most complicated FTO search, checkout our “Breaking: Freedom to Operate” blog from a few months ago.

TLDR…

Patentability and FTO searches are both important. A patentability search tells you if you can get a patent, while an FTO search helps in introducing a new product or service without stepping on any legal landmines. Patently makes both possible.

For more information or to see Patently in action, visit www.patently.com and sign up for free. Or contact us here to arrange a short call where we can discuss your pain points and walk through all the Patently features that can help out.