So, you are an inventor. You have a great idea. What’s next? Two things you need to research into before you spend more money on your idea are: market research and patentability search.
Do you market research first. I am assuming that your idea is a solution to a real world problem. If that is the case, there could be market potential for the idea. I am no market person. However, if it were my idea, the first place that I would look is internet. Internet is a rich place for market research. All these chat rooms, blogs, tweeters, and posts—people talk about everything in their life and every thought in their mind. If there is a problem, you bet that someone is going to chat about it. You might be able to find if the problem your idea solves is a common problem, what kind of solution people are hoping for, what are the existing solutions to the problem, and what the shortcomings of the existing solutions. From there, research into each existing solution to figure out: what are the market size, how much the product is selling for, and what are the improvements/advantages your solution offers. If you are satisfied that your idea has good market potential, you should then move into patentability search.
Patentability search helps you to decide if your idea is new (using patent term: novel) and not obvious (using patent term: nonobvious) over the existing solutions. Usually, for the inventors, I suggest that you only make the novelty determination. Obviousness determination is a tricky patent law concept. If you think that your idea is novel, you might want to consult with a patent attorney before you kill your idea because you think “it’s obvious” over existing references.
The following are suggested steps in doing patentability search using free databases. You don’t have to follow the steps or step sequences. And, remember that you can always hire a patent attorney to provide a patentability search and/or patentability opinion for you. Attorneys usually use paid databases—so, theoretically, the search results are more comprehensive than the ones you obtain from the free databases. The end point is that you need to find out as much information relating to your idea as possible so you can decide if the idea is new or not.
First, do a general internet search. I like to use google (www.google.com) and google scholar (http://scholar.google.com). Bing (www.bing.com) gives very limited results—the search engine is better for regular internet surfing than for patentability search. Try different combinations of the keywords for the search. Try multiple searches. Patent attorneys all know that keywords selection makes a huge difference in search quality. Try to think like an attorney--if you were to describe your idea in a patent, how you would describe it and what words and/or word combinations you would use. If there is a link that looks especially promising, follow through the links—usually the link with lead you to the most related reference. During the search, you will notice that related search results will coalesce into the references by a few authors or a few manufacturers (if your idea is a specific product).
Next, search authors’ names or manufactures’ names using common search engines and in the USPTO database. The search will lead you to more information. When search USPTO database (http://patft.uspto.gov/), search in both patent application and patent database. To search an author name, set the “inventor” as the author name and try different combination of the name. To search a manufacturer name, set the “assignee” as the manufacturer name. Again, try different combinations of the name. The search will provide you the patents and patent applications that the author or the manufacturer has filed before 18-months of your search date. Those patents and patent applications are rich sources of information—you can find out the details of the product designs allowing compare the product designs with your idea.
There a lot of free patent database you can try out. Some websites have collected free patent databases sites. Here are a few you can explore:
After a few days of exhaustive search, you are satisfied that your idea is new and there is a good market potential for your idea. This is a good time to talk to a patent attorney. If you want go a little further before spending the money hiring an attorney, or if you want to do this yourself, then you need to have a basic grasp on patent law—which I will discuss in my next post.
Thanks for reading!
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