Prior art or state-of-the art or background art with respect to a patent constitutes all information that is available in the public domain in any form before the date of filing of a patent application. The prior art search should be performed before starting the research, during the research, and before exploiting a product or process. For an invention to be patented, the criteria of novelty and non-obviousness have to be met. A prior art search is undertaken to ascertain whether an invention is new and non-obvious, or not.
To begin with, a prior art search will uncover any knowledge existing before the invention at hand. The prior art may include, but may not be limited to, patent applications, scientific theses, public knowledge, traditional knowledge, etc. Once this knowledge is obtained, an inventor will get an accurate idea of novelty and non-obviousness. Later, the inventor can, accordingly, re-work his invention and patent application to enable the grant of a patent for the invention. Thus, a prior art search will help distinguish between what is already known as prior art and what is a new invention. The secondary benefit of a prior art search is that an inventor can also use the findings to understand the prevailing state of the art in their field of research.
1. Keywords to Describe the Invention
To conduct a thorough search, you’ll need to account for all possible keyword combinations that could exist in the prior art.
2. Search the Patent Databases
The following patent search tools are free to kickstart your patent search:
- Google Patents
- USPTO Search
- Espacenet Search
- WIPO Search
- Patent Lens
3. Expand Your Search Beyond Patent Databases
Prior art isn’t limited to only existing patents or patent applications; it includes all publicly available ideas. Prior art search should extend beyond patent searching, therefore, non-patent literature (NPL) must be considered available to the public. NPL could be any article, research paper, traditional knowledge, product catalog, etc.
Benefits of Conducting a Prior Art Search
- Avoid submitting patent applications with claims that are not patentable.
- Determine whether your invention is novel compared to the public prior art.
- Develop a strong patent claim strategy before you file your patent application (and reduce the chance of extensive amendments).
- Describe advantages or improvements over relevant prior arts that help persuade the patent office that your invention is “non-obvious” and inventive.
- Understand how your idea fits into the technological field.
- To identify possible or alternative solutions to a technical problem or issue.
- Provides fair ideas for further improvement.
Business advantage
- To know and track what competitors are up to, that is to understand the marketing strategies of competitors.
- Keep a track of opportunities and threats.
- Forecasting future industrial developments.
- Identifying areas in which market demand is increasing and in which future R&D activity should be monitored.
- Monitoring general technological progress.
- Testing the soundness of policy and investment decisions.
- To identify which countries or companies are active in various fields.
To ensure that the prior art search is comprehensive, the strategy should include the step of short-listing keywords, exhaustive search through various searching tools, extensive internet-based search, and analysis and interpretation of search results in the final report.
– AmanIntellect IP