Infringement Search / Freedom to Operate search

An infringement search also termed as an FTO or clearance search is conducted to establish whether a product or process infringes an unexpired patent in the country where it is planned to be commercialized and to verify whether the patent holders can make, use, or market their innovation with no risk of infringing another holder’s unexpired patent. Click here to know more

Another reason for conducting an infringement analysis is to look for patent license. When you get a license to use another’s patent to manufacture, use or sell a product, it is vital that the patentee include, in the license agreement, a warranty of non-infringement in the license agreement.

Infringement/ FTO analysis is also conducted as part of the due diligence process, prior to an investor funding an invention. The report will ensure that a clearance/infringement search was done at the beginning of the project.

Infringement/ FTO analysis is a good way to find out if there will be unforeseen infringements before commercialising your intellectual property, or introducing a product to the market. If you actions infringe upon valid intellectual property rights that belong to others, you have the option to obtain a license with the owner of the original IP rights. This is possible only if we identify the owner of the IP rights. Click here to know more

Glide Legal's infringement searches cover only the claims of valid, in-force patents searches, to see if the particular product infringes the existing patents and thus help our clients find out whether or not they can liberally operate without infringing upon a competitor’s patent.

If you wish to commercialize your intellectual property in another country where there is a patent that claim’s the same elements of your product or process, there are a number of options for you to verify and adopt your patent:

• Term of issued patent: An issued utility patent remains active for 20 years from the date of filing (consider the patent term adjustments made that increases the patent life beyond the 20 year period). Claims in an expired patent are in the public domain and your product is free to operate based on those features. Design patents stay live for 14 years from date of issue.

• Maintenance of an issued patent: An issued utility patent may expire before the 20 year period if the maintenance fees are not paid on time. In USPTO it is 3.5years, 7.5 years and 11.5 years from the date of the original patent grant. No maintenance fee is required for design patents.

• Pending Applications: Evaluation of a pending application for the purpose of FTO is tricky as it could be an obstacle as it has a chance to be converted into a patent. We will take a close look at the prosecution of the application is required as the claims of an application may get changed to a great extent when it is issued compared to the published claims or may be rejected, abandoned or withdrawn.

• Multiple patents: Your product or process could be infringing multiple patents. Even if some features of your product or process do not infringe any valid patent claims, other features could be infringing because of a device or a process used to produce the device/ process, inside of outside the jurisdiction. Therefore it is necessary to check all the steps in your process or the components in your product to make sure they are free to be used.

• Patent: Make an agreement with the patent owner to use the patented technology or protected invention for the specific claim elements, in specific markets and for a specific period of time. Based on the potential of the patent and the type of agreement made, the patent owner may deal for a one-time settlement or for a periodic royalty payment or both.

• Cross-licensing: If you have a patent that partly covers your product or process features, but some other features are covered by another patent, make an agreement with the other patent owner to grant a license to each other where both the parties can make use of the claimed components of one another.

• Patent pools: This is an agreement among patent owners to cross-license a set of their patents to one another or to third parties, by which two or more entities working on interrelated technical domains can establish a pool of patent rights that any of them can use.

• Design around: You may design around the patents that create obstacles. This could be possible by advancing your research or amending the product or process features to avoid infringing others patents.

Our solid experience in freedom to operate and infringement search and analysis, using the world's leading databases and the best tools and talent provides us an advantage in preparing an informative report that gives a clear idea of whether your product or process is likely to infringe any active patents and (or) trademarks. We provide the status of these patents to help you calculate the potential of the threats and the opportunities
With our services, you are assured of:
• Search of valid patents within a market.
• Patent reference including relevancy analysis, with exact citations.
• No date restrictions.
• Subject matter expertise 35 verticals
• We use databases such as Thomson Innovation, Delphion, LexisNexis, MicroPat, and STN.
Click here to know more