The validity search is performed by assignee/plaintiff after the grant of a patent to ensure that the patent granted is valid and enforceable whereas an invalidity search is conducted by a defendant to invalidate a patent by conducting prior art search. The key objective of the validity and invalidity search is to unearth prior art that was likely missed by the patent examiner during the prosecution stage, which may potentially question the novelty or non-obviousness of the reference. An invalidity/validity search involves conducting a thorough patent and non-patent literature search to identify prior art references predating the earliest filing of the patent.
We perform exhaustive prior art searches in subscribed databases and provide references that are relevant to the patent that has to be invalidated. Our comprehensive search strategy includes keywords-based searching, patent classification based searching such as CPC, IPC, USC, FI, F-Terms (for Japanese patents) based searching, assignee and inventors based searching, citation search/spider searching and semantic search. The invalidity search report include the details of potential prior art literature (along with bibliographic details) and mapping of claims to the relevant text of the prior art literature/references.We help you conduct file wrapper analysis and identify references to invalidate a patent. While performing validity and invalidity search we focus on:
Making an accurate understanding of the technology of patent and claims coverage
Accurately defining the novel aspect of the patent based on specifications and file history
Validating the prior art under respective regional laws such as 35 USC 102/103 for US and article 54, 56 of EPC
