Patent searching is the crucial first step in innovation process. It helps determine novelty, ensuring your idea is truly original, assesses the inventive step to confirm it’s not an obvious improvement, and verifies its industrial application for real-world usability. A thorough patent search prevents surprise legal challenges, enhances your patent strategy, and safeguards your rights—because your breakthrough deserves the best protection.
Before committing time and resources to developing a new invention, it is essential to determine whether the idea qualifies for patent protection: meaning it must be new / novel, involve an inventive step, and have industrial applicability. To this end, conducting a patent search is a prudent first step.
Why is a Patent Search Important?
A patent search plays a pivotal role in protecting intellectual property by verifying that an invention is truly novel and not an obvious variant of existing solutions. This process entails a comprehensive examination of patent databases covering both granted and published applications as well as relevant non-patent literature across multiple jurisdictions. The objective is to uncover any existing technologies, methods, or designs that could conflict with or anticipate the proposed invention.
A comprehensive patent search helps assess:
Confirms the invention is genuinely new and not previously disclosed or patented.
Determines whether the invention represents a meaningful technical advancement rather than a trivial modification.
Evaluates whether the invention can be effectively used in an industry or practical context.
Beyond assessing patentability, a well-executed search delivers several strategic advantages:
- Prevents unnecessary costs by avoiding development of already patented ideas
- Improves patent quality by highlighting distinctive features for stronger claims
- Reduces legal risk by identifying potential infringement issues before product launch
- Offers market awareness by uncovering competitive trends and technological directions
- Informs R&D by helping innovators fine-tune their concepts or pivot when necessary
Types of Patent Searches
Depending on the specific objective, different types of patent searches can be conducted, such as
Novelty and Patentibility Search
Evaluates whether invention meets novelty, inventive step and industrial application.
Quick search
Provides the list of prior art documents disclosing the technology
Prior art search
Identifies existing prior art such as patented and non-patented literature.
Patent landscape search
Comprehensive analysis of patents within a specific technological or business area to identify the innovation trends, key players, opportunities.
Freedom to operate search – India only
Assesses whether a product or process can be developed, manufactured, and marketed without infringing existing intellectual property rights in Foreign
Freedom to operate search – foreign country
Assesses whether a product or process can be developed, manufactured, and marketed without infringing existing intellectual property rights in India
Validity / invalidity search
Determine whether a patent is legally sound and enforceable (valid) or susceptible to being challenged and overturned (invalid).
Infringement search
Examines whether the product or process violates existing patents
Patent watch and monitoring
Tracking newly published patents, legal status changes, and competitor activities
Inventor based search
Identifying patents and applications associated with a specific inventor
Assignee based search
Identifies patents and applications associated with a specific company or entity
Lex Rikai Advantage:
Deep-Dive Analysis:
Our team of Patent attorneys/agents and technical experts scrutinize your invention’s core features, identifying potential overlaps with prior art.
Database Mastery:
We leverage premium and paid global databases
Cost Efficiency and affordable:
Avoid wasted R&D budget.
Early Risk detection:
Identify patent conflicts at the outset and avoid expensive surprises during product launch or commercialization
Confidentiality:
Robust security protocols protect your intellectual property at every step.