Free Patent Search

How would you like to learn how to patent your product or idea…. and save thousands of dollars? Now you can do most of your preliminary patent searching online and for FREE! Opposed to paying several thousand dollars to have a patent attorney do it for you.

Performing a Free patent search is the most reliable way of discovering whether any similar patents or patent applications exist, which may be relevant to your invention or could affect the outcome of your own patent application. Being armed with this prior patent information known as ‘prior art’ serves two purposes:

• It helps to determine the likelihood of your invention obtaining patent protection in the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) and whether or not you should invest money in filling a patent application.
If a blocking patent is discovered during your search this will save you the expense of a patent application or worse having filed and paid for a patent application and the USPTO finds the same blocking patent during their search.

• Information found during your free patent search can help serve as a guide in drafting your patent application.
You will be able to focus the drafting of your application on the improvements and features of your invention not previously disclosed in the prior patents and published patent applications found during your free patent search.

The procedure for conducting a free patent search has two steps:

1) How to perform the patent search
• Conducting the Patent Search Yourself – Using keywords that describe your invention idea search USPTO or Google for prior patents and published patent applications. If you prefer to use a professional search service, you may still choose to conduct a preliminary patent search (pre-screening) yourself. Using your keywords, you will quickly see if someone patented your invention before you.

• Using a Professional US Patent Search Service – A U.S. patent search service performs either a manual or an electronic search of the physical records at the USPTO, and they may request a meeting with a USPTO Examiner to conduct a professional and thorough search on your behalf.

Remember to sign a non-disclosure agreement before disclosing your invention to patent search service. After a patent search service is complete, you will receive a stack of relevant US patents and patent applications for your review.

2) Review and evaluate the prior art references discovered in step 1
Once you have completed the search and found patents and/or patent applicants relevant to your invention idea, you can begin your evaluation.

Overview:
• Review each patent and patent application located in your patent search. Look for the elements, features, advantages and improvements listed in your Record of Invention.
• In particular, review each relevant US patent and patent application, looking for information on elements, features, advantages and improvements relevant to your invention.
• Thoroughly review, in order, the title, abstract, brief summary, and the drawings in the patent for initial clarification and understanding as to whether relevant to your invention.
• If determined to be relevant, read the entire patent or patent application to fully understand the scope of the patent disclosure and identify elements in the drawings by writing the element name on the drawings.

In conclusion, if each element, feature, advantage and improvement of your invention is disclosed in the patents or patent applications found during your search then your invention is likely not patentable (i.e., anticipated and not novel). If each element, feature, advantage and improvement of your invention is disclosed across two or more patents or patent applications found during your search then your invention is likely not patentable (obvious).

However, if each and every element, feature, advantage and improvement of your invention is not disclosed in the prior art patents and patent applications then you may have patentable subject matter. The degree of patentability of your invention whether broad, narrow or very narrow, depends on how many of the elements, features, advantages and improvements of your invention are missing (not found) in the prior art patents and patent applications based on your patent search.

A patent attorney may be engaged to perform a thorough patent search, to perform a review of relevant patents and patent applications found during a patent search, or to prepare a “patent search opinion letter,” i.e., evaluating whether or not your invention is patentable and if so, to what degree.

A “patent search opinion letter” is a written analysis of the relevant US patents and patent applications found during a patent search and a comparison of such prior art to the elements, features, advantages and improvements of your invention.

A patent attorney can determine whether the scope of a patent application covering your invention would likely be broad, narrow, very-narrow or whether a blocking patent was uncovered during the search. This information is pertinent in determining whether or not to move forward with protecting your invention by filing a patent application.

Free Patent Search