We have the tools and the experience to make sure you make fully informed IP decisions. We have invested in specialist third-party tools to carry out our own in-house searches. 

Patent searching is also an integral part of our patent attorney training program, so that a practical knowledge of patent searching runs through the core of the whole organisation.  For larger projects, we also work with specialist third party search firms who have dedicated patent searchers.

Novelty Searching

When you are considering developing a new area of technology, we can perform a landscape analysis to gain an overview of patents in the relevant area, and provide our input on what that means for strategic development options.

When you have a specific invention, we can carry out a novelty search, covering both patent and non-patent literature.  This can validate the novelty of the invention, or can inform how a future patent is framed to ensure that the strength of the application and the scope of protection is maximised.

Freedom to Operate

We also provide freedom to operate analysis.  We can investigate third party patent rights and provide legal opinions on infringement and validity.  This kind of research exercise could be carried out to support an investment round, or to provide input on the activity of competitors, or to provide a general overview of potential freedom to operate blockages.  Fully comprehensive freedom to operate searches are expensive exercises, but we tailor our approach to meet the specific needs so that a practical budget and searching strategy is devised and then reviewed as we go through the process.

Monitoring Competitors

We can also monitor the portfolios and activity of competitors, and can provide insights that will help you spot trends, discover new filings, and monitor activity of ongoing third party patent applications.

We can also provide various other alerts and monitoring services, such as monitoring third party patents that your own patents are cited against.