Patency Advice

[KSJ 1]

I have a very good idea for a product that I'm looking to produce. A company called Innovate Product design are helping me to do this.

The first step is to carry out a patency search for which they will charge me £534. I however that this is an excessive amount and that i can do this by myself but i don't know the best way of going about this.

in your opinions do you think the price innovate have quoted me is acceptable?

is a patency search something i could do myself without having to enlist a company to do it on my behalf?

 

[innovator]

I work for Innovate Design so please take other opinions as well but, for what it is worth, here is my justification for the fee:

What you are paying for is: the use of commercial patent databases rather than the more shoddy free to use ones, and also the opinion.

You could do a patent search yourself but would you know how to interpret the results or know how likely it would be to get a patent once you had acquired some search results?

Also I would think that for something as important as a patent search it would be worth spending more to ensure that it was done professionally rather than the person has cut corners to offer a knock down price.

The search results also include a complete introduction outlining the explanation of patent codes and how to understand the results.

Why not ring previous Innovate Design clients and see whether they were happy with our service? There are some listed on our website here: Innovate Design: Idea development case studies

 

[David Warrilow]

Hi

I'm a patent attorney at London IP.

You can do free patent searching yourself at the esp@cenet website (just Google it). We would recommend that everyone should do some patent searching themselves for free before commissioning a professional search. If something absolutely identical has been done before then there is no chance of obtaining patent protection.

To compare with Innovate Design, we charge £500+VAT for a one-day patent search. This includes a full written analysis of the results by a qualified patent attorney.

Please correct me if I am wrong, innovator, but I have had a few clients that have had patent searches done by Innovate Design, and I understand that you do not provide a written analysis from a qualified patent attorney.

I quite agree that before spending money on a professionally written patent application a professional search and not a 'shoddy' search should be performed at the outset and a full analysis of the results provided.

David