Types of Patent Searches

A nice brief compilation by Vinod Kumar Singh of Competitive and Technical Intelligence Toolbox (CTIB)

Search Type	Purpose	Coverage	Comments
State-of-the-Art	Identify general and background art for a particular technology	Patents and non-patent literature. Not exhaustive.	Gives a broad picture to help guide research
Patentability, Novelty	Identify art which may affect the patentability of an invention	Patents and non-patent literature. Multiple data sources.	Narrower in scope than State-of-Art. Recommended before writing patent application
Invalidity, Opposition	Identify prior art which may impact the claims of a specific patent	Patents and non-patent literature. Employ creative strategies to elucidate previously undiscovered art before filing date of patent.	Helps remove blocking patents by anticipating claims of an invention. Establishes solidity of patent portfolio, e.g. for licensing or company acquisition
Infringement, Freedom-to-Operate, Right-to-Use, Domination	Identify patents or applications which may cover a proposed product or process	Covers patents only and which are still in force. Include both narrow and broad concepts	Often country specific. Analysis of claims.
Patent Watch	Monitor new patent activity or status changes to existing patents	Patents only	Updates at regular intervals or rapid-alerting when activity occurs
Technology Update	Monitor latest technology developments by subject	Patents and/or non-patent literature	Regular updates, weekly, monthly or other chosen frequency
Non-Patent Literature Reference Query; Biomedical Information	Research into specific questions asked by biomedical staff regarding safety, clinical, regulatory areas, or by Research Scientists, etc.	Biomedical databases or other databases as appropriate	A quick turnaround on these types of searches can normally be accommodated
Inventor, Author or Assignee	Identify references to a particular inventor, author, assignee or affiliate	Patents and/or non-patent literature	A quick turnaround on these types of searches can normally be accommodated
Legal Status	Determine whether a patent is in force, abandoned, etc.	Specialist legal status online databases (e.g. ‘INPADOC’) and/or patent office registers	A quick turnaround on these types of searches can normally be accommodated
Patent Family	Identify the first or ‘basic’ patent and subsequent ones claiming the same priority	Patent databases such as ‘World Patents Index’, ‘INPADOC’ and ‘Chemical Abstracts’	A quick turnaround on these types of searches can normally be accommodated
Cited or Citing References	Identify references	Patent databases, e.g. ‘Derwent Patents Citation Index’ and non-patent literature, e.g. Science Citation Index	An alternative method useful in identifying additional state-of-the-art or invalidating prior art
Collections	‘Collect’ prior art in a particular area of technology	Patents only. Often conducted within selected patent classifications	Useful for directing research or identifying gaps for patenting strategies
Patent Map	Show patent landscape to uncover trends, gaps or overlap in patent coverage and links between patents	Patents only	Useful for directing research or identifying gaps for patenting strategies
Scientific Business	Identify financial, organizational, statistical, commercial and other information for technology based organizations	Business, news and other sources	Supply of raw data and/or overall analysis

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