Patentability vs Freedom to Operate

Do you have a new innovative idea in your mind and wondering how to protect it. Well, there are multiple ways to protect your idea under intellectual property rights, in which Patenting gives monopoly right to your idea, and allows you to exclude other from using, selling, and import your idea.

But before patenting you have to make sure whether your idea can be patentable, because if your idea is already known and obvious to the person skilled in the art then you cannot patent it. Further, there are millions of patent and non-patent information available online and thus, determining your idea is new become risky and difficult. Because, missing any prior art reference that is relevant to your idea will reduce your chances of obtaining Patent protection.

This is where you need patent professionals to help you in identifying whether your idea is new, how to protect your idea to prevent others from work around your idea easily and how to market your idea without infringing?

Here in this article we are going to figure what exactly is Patentability search and Freedom to operate search and how they are going to be useful in terms of your patent.

Patentability search is also known as Prior art search or Novelty search .It is a unique search used to determine if there is any evidence that the patent or application is invalid. In other words, it is done to determine if an invention is new and not obvious.

• Patentability search helps to understand the differences between what is already known (prior-art) and what is new (innovation).
• It can help you to learn, what is already known (prior-arts) and thereby explain the scope of protection in patent claims.
• Patentability search is like an appropriate conscience exercise that can change the risk of rejecting a patent application.
• The advantage of prior art search is that an inventor can also use the results to understand the status of art in his or her field of research.
• It helps to reduce the risk of later litigation.
• It helps in searching for both patent and non-patent literature to identify relevant references to the current invention.

Freedom to operate (FTO) search is also known as Patent clearance search or Freedom to Practice Search (FTP). Freedom to Operate (FTO) indicates whether it is commercially ‘safe’ to manufacture or sell your product in the country you wish to operate, without infringing on the rights of third parties currently in operation.

It is very important to conduct a Freedom to operate (FTO) search before launching a product or service in the market, within the relevant jurisdiction. The FTO does an advance search to identify live patents that can be mapped to the features of a product or service that companies need to launch to assess potential breach risk and prevent further litigation.

Patentability Search usually analysis the full description of active and non-active patents and applications because their main focus is to figure out the proposed invention against the prior arts. On the contrary, FTO search focuses on the claims of active and enforce patents to compare the breakthrough product or technology with claims to resolve infringement in questions.