A novelty search is what determines the fate of an invention. It unravels all information about its credibility of a new invention and justifies a further investment in it. A Patentability Search is therefore essential before filing a Patent Application to ascertain its patentability. It must serve as an economical tool to solve any problems that may tarnish the patentable profile of the invention.
Since, the title 35 of the United Sates Code of patent law (35 U.S.C. 101) stipulates “Whoever invents or discovers any New and Useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor…”, it is a necessity that the invention must be novel, timely, non-obvious, and documented.
The above criterion makes it fundamental to conduct a patentability search prior to filing a Patent Application. It is because; a Patentability Search is the only tool to answer the following questions:
1. Is your idea a novel one?
2. Has it already been patented?
3. Has it been anticipated or rendered obvious?
4. Is it worth investing in filing a patent, if there is any scope of patentability?
5. What is your competitor doing?
6. Is it worth the effort and expense to fully develop and market your concept?
Yet, how far the several searches conducted in patents and applications by many individual firms have been fruitful, is still a matter of debate. Our several years of observations have revealed that the reason for the rejection of such applications were mainly due to the citing of non-analogous art.
That’s why, we at the PSI, extend our search for the obvious prior arts from noncore classifications, while focusing the search on core categories that are relevant to the invention. These findings give us an edge over others and prompt us to deliver:
1. The key points of the inventions disclosed to us
2. 5 to 10 closest prior art, gist of prior art patents, and non-patent literature
3. An analysis of how our inventions differ from the prior art
4. The key points of our invention anticipated by the prior art
5. The number of anticipated key points and how they were anticipated
6. The key strings we used and the number of hits we got
7. The invention elements we weighed in the search