Novelty searches

Patent applications are evaluated on the basis of the following three criteria:

Novelty

Inventive Step

Industrial Applicability

To judge whether or not these requirements are fulfilled, the relevant patent office (e.g. the European Patent Office) will conduct a novelty search. The results of such a search may take a long time to issue: 18 to 24 months is not exceptional. It is possible to file a request for accelleration of the search; Nevertheless it will still take up to nine months, on average, before the results reach the applicant.

If you would like to know where you stand in the meantime, NPS Patent Searches can conduct a novelty search for you. In such a search, NPS will search for publications in which your idea is described. If such publications are found, you can spare yourself the trouble of filing and/or continuing an application. In addition, NPS will search for combinations of publications that may be held against your invention on the basis of lack of inventive step (in which case an examiner will argue that your invention is obvious to a person skilled in the art). In such an instance, it is also questionable whether it's worth the trouble of filing and/or continuing an application, because there is a reasonable chance that your application will get rejected (or alternatively, that the scope of the claims will be narrowed to such an extent that the associated granted patent would be virtually worthless to you anyhow).

For a novelty search, NPS will need a fairly accurate description of your invention.