Learn more about patent attorney services in the field of industrial property

Are you working on a solution, but it's not ready yet? Maybe you're interested in a specific field and want to learn about the latest solutions being developed? Or perhaps you're looking for publications made by specific Inventors? In short - if you have a more or less specific question, we can try and answer it together using patent databases and see what we can find. Among the hundreds of millions of documents, there’ll surely be something interesting for everyone.

A patentability or novelty search involves comparing the solution developed by the Inventor with its closest equivalents already known in the prior art to assess whether it meets the statutory criteria for obtaining protection, i.e., novelty and inventive step (Articles 25 and 26 of Polish Industrial Property Law / Articles 54 and 56 of the European Patent Convention) in the case of patents. For utility models, on the other hand, the primary objective is to verify whether the requirement for novelty is met, although the conditions are not standardized across all countries, so a certain degree of inventive step analysis may also be necessary. The report's conclusions estimate the possibility of obtaining protection, and the more precisely the examined solution is described at the start, the more precise the conclusions will be.

FTO, risk of patent infringement, freedom of entry into the market, patent risk assessment – there are many names for an search that answers a single question: "Will your solution infringe another's patent/utility model?" To prepare for this, you need to know WHAT we are analysing and WHERE.

WHAT – requires a precise definition of the solution being examined, i.e., what it is, what has been changed/improved and what has been known for many years.

WHERE – requires defining the territory to be examined ("the whole world" means a lot of documents and responsibility, therefore it will take time and cost more).

Ultimately, it's worth to work on the criteria for the search together and agree on a specific search query that will limit the group of documents that will be subjected to in-depth analysis. The conclusions from the search estimate the risk of conflict when launching a given solution into the market.

Grant applications often require the submission of a prior art report that supports the viability of developing a given solution, both in terms of the possibility of obtaining protection and introducing R&D results into the market without infringing on the rights of other entities. Preparing such a report therefore requires a mixed approach, examining both aspects of patentability and possible infringements, along with precise listing of how the search was conducted. A report presenting relevant publications and formulating substantiated conclusions can be indispensable when applying for funding.

Are you not interested in reading specific publications, but enjoy graphical visualizations of certain information? You don't have a ready solution that you could launch into the market or try to patent, but are curious about the possible development directions of a given field of technology? Do you know your competitors but want to learn more about what they do or where they see potential markets? Or perhaps you want to learn about the competition your solution might face, as you're just entering the market? Even relatively vague questions can be turned into something that provides useful insights that can be presented in various ways.

Is someone threatening to invalidate your patent or utility model? Do you want to know the chances of invalidating those belonging to your competitor? To begin, you need a document to be analysed, with the contents available or translated into Polish or English. Based on the filing date (or priority) of such document, older publications are searched which may fully or partially disclose aspects of the protected solution. Finally, a conclusion is formulated – whether the given patent/utility model met the legal requirements for obtaining protection or not.