About the service
Organizations make significant investments in research and development and filing patents. We help our clients convert these investments into returns by enforcing the legal rights of their IP portfolio.
A patent comes with certain legal rights, one of them being able to monopolize your invention for a certain period (usually twenty years). One way to monetize patents is by conducting patent infringement searches. A patent infringement occurs when an organization knowingly or unknowingly incorporates the claimed elements of a granted patent into their product(s)/service(s).
Methodology
Following steps are performed for infringement search
Step 1
Understand the Patent and pick up the broadest claim
Starting by a thorough understanding of the subject patent and reviewing the patent's claims, specification, file wrapper, etc. Then, identifying the broadest independent claim, the key elements and the novel part of the claim.
Step 2
Identify the Potential Infringers
Identifying potential infringers and analysing their products or technologies that may infringe on the patent.
Step 3
Analyze the Accused Product or technology
Examining the accused product or technology in detail to identify its features, components, or steps. This involves a thorough search including going through the product detailed documentation, product teardowns, etc.
Step 4
Compare the Accused Product/technology to the Patent Claims
Comparing the claim elements to the features of the accused product or technology and determining whether each element in the claim is present or not in the accused product/technology.
Step 5
Marking Infringement level
Providing an infringement level ranking to each patent in accordance with the accused product. The infringement levels are High, Medium or Low. High means complete infringement mapping, Medium means partial infringement mapping including novel claim elements, and Low means no infringement mapping.
Step 6
Preparing Analysis Report
Finally, preparing a report including analysis comments, target products, source links, infringement level, etc. for clear understanding of each patent and its infringement search.
Why choose Effectual Services for performing Infringement Search?
We have a team of experienced workforce, consisting of Engineers, Bachelors, Masters and PhDs from various technical backgrounds, including Computer Science and Information Technology, Electronics and Communications, Electrical, Mechanical, Chemical, Biotechnology, Pharmaceuticals and Life Sciences domain.
Our techno-legal professionals are well versed in correlating the ‘marketing’ language of the products with technical terminologies, so as to relate the product features with the claim language.
We provide portfolio management and targeted infringement searches for maximum monetization.
We have our in-house ranking tool in order to determine the patents strength. Our ranking tool is designed to determine the value of a patent based on 10 key parameters, for example forward citations, Litigation status, family legal status, geographical coverage, etc. The proprietary algorithm of the tool assigns different weights to the key parameters based upon one’s business context and assesses the strength of each patent accordingly.
Many of our team members have a Law degree in addition to the technical degrees making them ideal for Intellectual Property related services.
We have experienced team members in software domain tools to analyze the complex source codes and experienced team members related to Standards, Telecom, Wi-Fi related technologies.
We provide customized pricing plans in accordance with the budget and the requirements.
Effectual Services has performed around 2300+ Infringement search projects in a year.
Call to ActionCase Study
One of our client requested us to help monetize their IP portfolio against their key competitors. The requirement was to identify potential infringing products from the competitors. Firstly, we input the provided granted patents from our client portfolio through our in-house ranking tool in order to determine their patent strength. Our ranking tool is designed to determine the value of a patent based on 10 key parameters, for example forward citations, Litigation status, family legal status, geographical coverage, etc. Once the portfolio was ranked based on the key parameters, as a next step, we manually categorized the portfolio based on the prepared taxonomy. The result was a bucket of patents that were domain-specific and highly valued. The next task was to identify potential targets from competitors' product and services portfolio. We analyzed each competitor product thoroughly against all the categorized patents of our client and we gave them a ranking, 'H', 'M', or 'L' for high, medium, and low respectively, based on the infringement probability against each granted asset. Using this approach, we were able to identify a good number of potential infringing products from the vast and varying product portfolio of competitors. The client was highly impressed by our output.
A client once approached us for an Infringement search project for a set of patents against some particular target companies. The patents were related to safety equipments, ballistic resistance materials, etc. The requirement was to categorize each patent against the products of the given target companies, the different categorization definitions were provided by the client. We performed the product search on the given target companies and identified some high potential infringing cases against the products of the given target companies. We provided different categorization of each patent against the identified product, as required by the client. We finally shared our output in the form an excel report containing analysis comments, patent understanding, source links, categorization, for each patent. We were appreciated by the client over the call.
A client once approached us for an Infringement search project for a set of patents, it was an open search project. The patents were related to domain like OTT, content delivery, multimedia, etc. The client wanted us to target only main market players in these domains. We identified some main market players in these domains and performed product search in these players. We were able to identify some good infringing products against the products of these players. We finally shared our output in the form of infringement feasibility reports. The feasibility report includes infringement probability of a product along with a detailed summary of the analysis. The client was quite impressed with our results.
FAQ
Infringement search is conducted to determine whether a product or a process infringes upon an existing granted patent claim. A product cannot infringe the dependent claims if the product does not infringe an independent claim. Therefore, the independent claims are analyzed for the patent infringement.
Infringement searches are conducted to ensure that nobody makes, uses, or sells your patented invention without your consent. Performing an infringement search can provide you information about possible infringing product/technologies available in the market.
The party who is the patent holder/owner is called plaintiff and the infringing party is called the defendant. The term ‘multiple infringers’ is used when there are cases of more than one party being accused of infringing on the same patent.
Infringement searches are typically conducted by patent attorneys, intellectual property consultants, or professionals with expertise in patent law and patent analysis.
The main objectives of an Infringement search are to :
Identify the products/technologies that may be infringing your patents.
Determine potential strategies to get returns from investment made in filing and maintaining the patent portfolios.
Patent infringement cases result from a party's use or sale of a product that uses another party’s patented technology without the permission of the patent holder/owner. If potential infringement is detected, the patent holder can sue the infringing party to stop the use or sale of their product. The patent holder can also seek damages for the unauthorized use that occurred.
Infringement Contentions
Patent Licensing
Patent Mining
Product Testing Code Review
Licensing Litigation Support
File History Analysis
