Select a Search Type for More Information
- Patentability / Novelty Search
- Clearance Search
- State-of-the-art Search
- Pipeline Search
- Design Patent Clearance Search
- US Patent Infringement Search
- Landscape Search
- Validity Search


Patentability Search / Novelty Search
Patentability Searches find prior art that may preclude novelty or non-obviousness during the examination process. An extensive patentability search defines for an applicant the scope of the claims that the granting authority is likely to find acceptable; this prevents examiner restrictions and the time and cost associated with responding to them. While the concept of “old combination” is no longer a standard for patent examiners to employ, the principles offer valuable insight into the bright line criteria needed to competently conduct searches: (a) the same elements in (2) the same relative relationship to each other and (3) for the same purpose. As the search is conducted the above three standards are applied to a located document to see if rises to the level of meriting inclusion in the report. The searcher seeks to find that the cooperation between the elements shown and the result produces a one-to-one mapping to the materials or subject matter under search. The searcher does not start with claims but with pseudo claims based on an informed judgment developed from the descriptive documents, models, samples etc. The goal here is find those features present in the descriptive materials that distinguish the inventive combination from those combinations present in the "prior art" that we search. The idea is to isolate the new or novel features so that the patent practitioner can write claims to this addition to the body of human knowledge. In this search careful time boundaries are not observed because the working assumption is that the invention came into being in the present, sort of t=0. Upon review of the documents located, the patent practitioner may find various documents that are presented in the search report to be "not prior art" for various technical and legal reasons.
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Clearance Search 
A clearance search arises in the context of a party seeking to legally practice a particular product or process without running afoul of others’ patent rights. A clearance search locates patents with claims that could prevent a party from making, using or selling a certain product or practicing a process. Clearance searching differs from patentability searching because the requirements of novelty and non-obviousness in the examination process do not consider the make-use-sell activity which are the requirements for infringing an existing patent. Patents confer only the right to exclude others from what is claimed; patents do not confer the right to practice the scope of its claims nor the enabling disclosure that is part of a patent. Making, using, or selling a product or practicing a process often includes practicing the claims of others’ patents and consequently requires a clearance search to identify another's patent rights. From there, a skilled attorney is able to advise as to whether an actual infringement concern is present. A professional clearance search, with close attention to the scope of the contemplated product or process and the claim language of the patents being searched, attempts to find those patents that may be infringed and will inform of where liabilities may lie. Typically, a clearance search seeks to identify candidates for further consideration that a skilled attorney will evaluate in providing his or her client with a legal position. (There are many factors that weigh into these decisions.) A clearance search has the emphasis on locating patents that have an immediate “look and feel” that tends to make them have prima facie selection value. The underlying focus of this search is to find those patent properties that would have support for “imaginary” claims that could be cleanly and clearly of interest to the major set of features that make up the make-use-sell combination. (This differs from an Infringement Search that has focus on both the major set and also on sub-sets of the combination.) The search seeks to check the claim wording for those major candidates that have showings in the disclosure and to bring those forward in the search report that have prominent claim language that enhance their candidacy.
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State-of-the-Art Search 
A State-of-the-Art Search is conducted to inform the client of important and pivotal movements in an art area and tends to focus on the ends of the technology tree where new growth will be likely to develop. A mundane example is that the State-of-the-Art in spring biased mousetraps will show a conventional Victor™ mousetrap because while old and even likely in the public domain it represents what is being practiced in the marked place today. The tendency in this search area is to locate “edge” developments that define the outer boundaries of the available “prior art” documents. To some extent the searcher has to decide what not to include in that if there are 25 showings that have relatively the same weight then the searcher will show representatives of this group.
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Pipeline Search
A Pipeline Search is a low cost, high value search that is intended for IP counsel interested in assessing the value of initiating prosecution or further novelty searching on an innovation. We attempt to discover the “lowest hanging fruit” by assigning the search to a highly skilled and experienced patent searcher for an abbreviated search. The searcher usually reports 3-5 of the most prominent documents, a short encapsulation directed to features shown, and a brief description of the search methodology. Our Pipeline Searches are delivered exclusively on the web in a dedicated database specifically designed for high-volume use with assurance of privacy and with on-screen presentations. The limitation on this search is that the risk boundaries are less clear if the located documents do not show the features under search.
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Design Patent Clearance Search 
As a party proceeds to make, use or sell a design for some object of manufacture the question often arises as to who is likely to be in a position to stop the activity. The holders of utility patents are restricted in their ability to lay claim to specific designs whereas the holders of design patents are allowed to assert rights to their claimed invention (as shown and described in their patent disclosure). A design patent has nothing to do with functionality. These rights are to the claimed invention and to arguably simple modifications to the “ornamental arrangement” claimed. The test is not by a person skilled in the art, but that of an ordinary observer. Here, a search for a keychain ornament with a “Corvette” automobile image would report back U.S. design patents for “Corvette” automobile per se. (This is in distinction to a keychain ornament with a “Corvair” that would NOT return design patents for a “Corvette”.) Thus, this search seeks to identify those U.S. design patents (that are active) claiming subject matter such that the owner of the patent could argue trespass of the owned patent property by the activity.
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U.S. Patent Infringement Search 
An infringement search seeks to find those US patent properties having active claims that would allow the owner of that property to assert the rights to those claims against any party that is making, using or selling any subcomponent that falls within the boundaries of any single claim in an owned US patent. For example, a party who wants to take to the market an item of commerce having elements A-B-C-D (even if they own a US patent with a claim to elements A-B-C-D) will need to address the possibility that another party will possibly assert another US patent with elements A-B-C. (So in this search, the concern is not about novelty but about the ownership of sub-elements of a combination that is being practiced rather than being patented.) In practice, the boundaries of such a search have to be set at a level that gives the party practicing the make-use-sell combination comfort that the search granularity is not so fine as to make the search an academic exercise rather than a legal exploration and examination of risk. For example, if the make-use-sell combination was for a sliding fastener (a zipper) then it would not be practical to extend the search all the way to the Nylon filament but it might practical to extend the search to the machines that impart an oval shape to the Nylon so that it coils into the side elements of the fastener. These boundary decisions are those of the risk manager and not of the searcher. Likewise, the work to locate the candidates for consideration by the attorney who is making recommendations is one of both diligent workmanship and creative imagination in that the task to is to locate U.S. patents with claims both detailed and broad that may be supported by disclosures that bear little resemblance to the “picture” of the make-use-sell combination. Further, the use of keyword searching is also not absolute because great variation is often present in technologies and claims that are dominant. In other words, the searcher’s main tool is to locate disclosures that have the potential to support claims of interest; creativity is often required to do that. From there, the searcher selects those that have claim wording that places that US patent in a category for further review by an attorney to determine if it has real merit. As one can readily extrapolate, the infringement search has no limit as to number of documents that could be included in the search report because any party owning any sub combination of elements has the theoretical ability to pursue an action to stop infringement of the owned property.
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Landscape Search 
Imagine ordering a patent landscape and state-of-the-art document search, and being confident that an expert in the technology will complete it, knowing the cost, scope, and search methodology beforehand, having long term and continuing access to the report and its references through a secure online database cross-referenced to each document, and sharing this access with anyone you chose. Imagine also search reports designed for quick intelligibility, highlighting the relevant documents with short comments, without unnecessary boilerplate information or marginally relevant documents, but including all the information you need to know how the report fits into your decision making process and your informational needs going forward. The purpose of such a search is provide the client with a technical-legal presentation of the IP workspace:

(1) occupied by others:
(2) occupied by our client (in comparison to others);
(3) contested areas; and
(4) areas available for capture.

This information enable our client to make informed and incisive business decisions regarding opportunities to pursue the technology area of interest. To do that PAS provides a claims-oriented excursion into the information available in patent documents to build a set of guides and indicators that help inform the presentation. These guides focus on the parties (facial assignees, & inventors) and the technologies. PAS uses a series of database filters to allow the client to drill down into the findings to see the various relationships. Further, PAS provides an extensive state-of-the-art presentation organized along the same lines with emphasis on corporate, academic and private parties who have worked in the technology. To accomplish the selection of the documents highly trained and highly experienced individual professionals make primary decisions on documents to include and the categorization of these documents into a matrix of interest. PAS uses field experts, a technique that is believed to be vital to conduct an accurate landscape search. Unlike an algorithm that mindlessly tallies documents and properties with pre-conceived weights the patent specialists provide selection judgments based on context. The end product is a summary of areas of technology that are coordinated to the parties and winnowed down to a document set. PAS provides a reduced document set of interest with a larger set of ancillary documents showing either background or secondary property claims in the workspace relating to the field of interest.
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Validity Search 
A validity (an effort to show invalidity) search has the goal of finding prior art showings that include all the elements of the claims of the patent of interest and which have a date earlier than, preferably greater than one year earlier than, the priority (filing) date of the patent (so-called 102b-type documents). Prior art showings that contain some of the elements of the claims and those with specific suggestions to combine additional elements are also of interest (103-type showings). References called out in the prosecution of the target patent are excluded from presentation but are often used during the search to orient the searcher and to guide the search. In other words, the search seeks to uncover some subset of features in a prior art document or showing that maps in a 1-to-1 relationship to the elements in one or more of the claims in the target U.S. patent. During the search, time limit boundaries are lifted so as to locate art developments which might lead through back-searching to prior art disclosures within the required (statutory date) time frame. In other words, the benefit of subsequently available documents provides a powerful backward view that was unavailable at the time the searches accompanying the original prosecution were conducted. As is true with patentabilty and novelty type searches, validity documents include any published document and are not limited to U.S. patents only. For validity, the rules provide a special case for 102e-type documents that rely on a right of foreign priority for a foreign filing and on U.S. patents and published applications that are filed prior to the filing date of interest but which have a later date of publication. A validity search is generally wide ranging, and extensive because newly developed documents and showings generally must be equal to or better than prior art made of record by the examiner or prosecuting attorney or showings identified by subsequent searchers. Motivations for conducting validity searches include : (1) response to litigation or threat of litigation (2) licensing and cross licensing negotiations (3) evaluation to purchase rights (4) due diligence for acquisition (5) due diligence prior to assertion of rights in an action and or (6) evaluation of threats prior to sale of rights or funding acquisition.
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