The Importance of Patent Searches

It is important for companies to keep the patent system in mind, whether or not they choose to seek patents for their own products. When technical personnel create useful products or processes that seem to them to be significant advances on the prior art, the assistance of patent counsel very often becomes useful. First, companies need to determine whether use or sale of these new processes or products might infringe someone else s patent. This may involve a search of the relevant records of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (and of the patent offices of any foreign countries where the products may be used or marketed). Second, if the product seems to technical personnel to be novel and significant of the art, companies may want to consider whether to apply for a patent. In such a situation, a search should be made at the Patent and Trademark Office to determine whether the invention seems likely to be patentable. How extensive a search should be before a patent application is filed, as well as the decision whether to seek a patent at all, may depend upon how valuable the invention seems. For a very important item, patent lawyers may also conduct searches of the relevant trade literature to see whether the invention has been anticipated but not patented. Some companies monitor the 

Patent and Trademark Office records both to keep track of commercially useful patents whose exclusive terms have expired and to keep track of new inventions to which the Patent Office grants exclusive rights. 

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