AiPi utilizes enormous scientific and engineering resources to perform a range of searching services, including patentability, clearance/FTO, and validity searches. These technical resources enable AiPi
to achieve optimum search results for a wide range of technologies. AiPi then uses domestic IP advisors to present the search results in a clear, direct and effective manner, and our reports can be provided in a format that is tailored to our clients’ specifications. Our reports can include any desired level of detail, including claim element by element analyses (such as in the form of claim charts), and can provide more general conclusions and guidance on which our clients may rely to make important legal and business decisions, identify new opportunities, etc. We utilize a variety of tools and software apps to represent our search results in any desired format, and where appropriate incorporate graphics, tabs, and other visual techniques so that our results are represented in a manner that is intuitive from the reader’s perspective.
We offer other types of searching related services, including infringement searches and analyses as well as IP landscapes. For example, the searching and analytics capabilities provided by our technical staff and domestic IP advisors enable AiPi to analyze scopes of patent protection in a variety of technologies, identify potentially infringing activities and parties, and provide corresponding infringement analyses and reports. AiPi also applies these capabilities to assess relevant technology domains, and to generate landscape reports that are tailored to enable our clients to make a variety of decisions and implement strategies relating to research and development, commercialization, legal and IP issues, etc.
AiPi provides the following types of searching and assessments:
- Prior Art Searching and Patentability Assessments
- Invalidity/Validity Searching and Assessments
- Freedom to Operate / Clearance Searching and Assessments
- Patent Landscape Searching and Assessments
Prior Art Searching and Patentability Assessments
Prior art searching is performed to identify prior art that may be relevant to the patentability of a certain invention. This prior art is then assessed to determine whether the invention is patentable, and if so, whether a sufficient scope of protection exists to warrant the expenses associated with pursuing patent protection. In cases where the scope of protection is sufficient to support the preparation and filing of a patent application, the properly identified and assessed prior art may be submitted to the patent office (such as via an information disclosure statement), which strengthens the resulting patent by providing a presumption of validity over the submitted prior art. Properly identified and assessed prior art can also be used to ensure that an appropriate level of claim scope is submitted to the patent office to avoid unnecessary prior art based rejections and thereby expedite prosecution and reduce costs.
AiPi’s team includes experts with extensive and varied scientific and engineering backgrounds capable of performing patentability searches covering a wide range of technologies. Our enormous infrastructure and technical resources enable AiPi’s searchers to access databases of world-wide patent publications and non-patent literature to ensure identification of the most relevant prior art for use in our patentability assessments. Our patentability reports include citations of relevant sections of each prior art reference, analyses as to the relevant features disclosed or not disclosed, and conclusions as to the scope of available patent protection to enable our clients to easily and accurately determine the feasibility of preparing and filing patent applications.
Invalidity/Validity Searching and Assessments
Validity/Invalidity searching is performed to identify prior art that may be relevant to the validity of claims of an issued patent and to otherwise determine a patent’s legal status. Prior art is assessed to determine whether the claimed features are disclosed by the prior art, which may invalidate the claims based on the patentability criteria of the relevant jurisdiction. Proper validity/invalidity assessments are vital to making appropriate business and legal decisions that involve IP, such as determining whether to enforce a patent via patent infringement litigation (or identifying defenses against an asserted patent), judging the feasibility of initiating an invalidity action, and assessing the value of a patent in the context of IP sales or licensing agreements.
AiPi’s team includes experts with extensive and varied scientific and engineering backgrounds capable of performing validity searches covering a wide range of technologies and of otherwise determining a patent’s legal status. Our enormous infrastructure and technical resources enable AiPi’s searchers to access databases of world-wide patent publications and non-patent literature to ensure identification of the most relevant prior art for use in our validity/invalidity assessments. Our validity reports include citations of relevant sections of each prior art reference, identification of relevant features disclosed or not disclosed including claim element by element analyses (such as in the form of claim charts comparing each claim element to a feature disclosed in a prior art reference), and conclusions of claim validity/invalidity to provide guidance on which our clients rely to make important legal and business decisions.
Freedom to Operate / Clearance Searching and Assessments
Freedom to operate searching (also known as clearance and right to use searching) is performed to identify active patents and patent publications that may be of concern or otherwise relevant to our clients’ research, development and/or commercialization efforts. Active patents and patent publications are assessed to determine whether the claims may be held by courts of a relevant jurisdiction to cover our clients’ current or planned activities. Proper freedom to operate assessments are vital to making appropriate business and legal decisions, such as calculating the risks involved in certain commercialization efforts, and determining whether to pursue a licensing arrangement with a patent owner.
AiPi’s team includes experts with extensive and varied scientific and engineering backgrounds capable of performing freedom to operate searches covering a wide range of technologies. Our enormous infrastructure and technical resources enable AiPi’s searchers to access worldwide databases to ensure identification of the most relevant patents and patent publications that may be of concern in any relevant jurisdiction. Our freedom to operate reports include citations of relevant sections of each patent or patent publication, identification of relevant claims including claim element by element analyses (such as in the form of claim charts comparing each claim element to our clients’ activities), and conclusions of claim infringement/non-infringement to provide guidance on which our clients may rely to make appropriate legal and business decisions.
Infringement searching is performed to identify commercialization efforts by others that may be held to infringe claims of our clients’ patents. Our clients’ active patents and patent publications are assessed to determine whether the claims may be held by courts of a relevant jurisdiction to cover another party’s commercialization efforts. Proper infringement searching and assessments may identify opportunities for monetizing IP, facilitate achieving favorable terms in business arrangements with competitors, or otherwise impact IP strategies, such as by broadening IP rights to more clearly cover commercialization efforts by others.
AiPi’s team combines scientific and engineering experts covering a wide range of technological expertise with commercial investigators skilled in identifying and obtaining technical and financial information relating to commercialization efforts. Our enormous infrastructure and investigative resources enable AiPi’s investigators to discover information relevant to identifying infringement and determining revenues relating to infringing activities worldwide. Our infringement reports identify relevant claims and provide claim element by element analyses (such as in the form of claim charts comparing each claim element to the identified commercialization activities), conclusions of claim infringement, and financial information relating to infringing activities on which damages may be assessed.
Patent Landscape Searching and Assessments
Patent landscapes provide in-depth analyses of selected technological or commercial domains, such as by dividing a domain into categories and sub-categories and then citing relevant IP information that corresponds to each category/sub-category. Some landscapes cite patents and patent publications based on technological fields and sub-fields to identify crowed and less crowded technological areas.
Other landscapes can focus on certain patent owners, such as to identify competitors’ IP strategies, patent filing trends, etc. Landscapes can also provide jurisdictional data to identify IP rights in specified jurisdictions. These and other types of landscapes can be used to guide various business and legal decisions, such as with regard to research and development activities, IP strategies, and commercialization efforts.
AiPi’s team combines scientific and engineering experts covering a wide range of technological expertise with commercial investigators skilled in obtaining information relevant to numerous types of patent landscapes. AiPi also has the institutional flexibility and commitment to assign specified teams of professionals to clients having recurring periodic projects to enhance efficiency and reduce costs, such as in the context of providing regularly updated landscapes. We utilize a variety of tools and software apps to represent our patent landscapes in any desired format, and incorporate graphics, tabs, and other visual techniques so that each landscape is represented in a manner that is intuitive from the reader’s perspective.