The prior art search

Prior art research consists of conducting a survey of documentary databases, in particular those specialized in patents, in order to try to find previous documents which disclose elements similar to the invention that you want to protect.

The question then becomes whether the invention to be protected has already been fully or partially disclosed.

If not, it could be recommended to file a new patent application to legally appropriate the technical elements of the invention and prevent a competitor from putting the same product on the market without our authorization.

Reservations are however to be put forward for prior art searches, the first being the fact that it is generally done on the basis of keywords which means that keywords that are not entered or not translated do not give any results.

The second limitation is that patents are published 18 months after the first filing, which means that there is a blind spot of 18 months during which earlier patents cannot be found within this period (filings made less than 18 months from the day of the search). On the other hand, unpublished patents are not opposable to subsequent filing under inventive step.

SOTERYAH IP assists you in your search for prior art and advice on patentability or infringement.

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