Patent and design searches
Whether you are launching a new product, keeping tabs on a competitor, or you just want to know if your idea is new, patent and design searching is a great way to ensure your competitive advantage is secure. Our search services are offered through, IP Organisers (IPO), our dedicated wholly owned intellectual property (IP) research and investigations company.
We conduct a wide variety of searches of patent and design literature to assist our clients. We determine what type of searches are appropriate given your particular objectives and budget. We then conduct the searches and provide you with a report tailored to your needs.
Our search services include:
- Novelty or patentability – Investigations are typically conducted by clients that believe they have an invention that may be patentable or a design that is new. The search will seek to identify any prior art that a patent attorney can compare the invention or design with to assess if it is new (novel).
- Validity- Investigations generally start with an existing patent or design and look for prior art that may impact the validity of claims in that patent or assertion of a design being new.
- Infringement – Investigations start with a product and seek to identify any existing patents or designs the product would (or may) infringe.
- Landscape – Searches are used to identify what research work is being done in a particular technology and who is conducting it. It can also cover the developing and changing nature of designs. Such searches may assist decisions about the direction R&D should take.
- Name – Investigations are searches of patent/design literature conducted in specific names. Name searches are often conducted to determine whether a company has IP protection in relation to a particular product.
- Due diligence – Investigations are searches of IP portfolios to determine the current legal situation of the identified IP. They are often used in mergers, acquisitions, licensing arrangements or initial public offering matters.
- Documents provision – We provide copies of documents including patent specifications, human and/or machine translations of patent specifications, patent file histories, details of registered designs, journal articles, standards, and almost any document that is required by a client.
- Working of patents – In some cases, it is necessary to establish nominal working of patents. We can arrange the placement of suitably worded advertisements in Australian publications for the purposes of establishing this nominal working.
- Watches – Watches involve regular, periodic monitoring of specific IP rights, competitors and/or technology fields to assist our clients stay abreast of developments that may impact on their business.
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