Invalidation Searches
Invalidation – an introduction
An invalidation search, also known as an opposition search or validity search, is a search conducted to determine if one or more claims of a granted patent are valid. The term “prior art” refers to information relating to a patent that has been published in any language, anywhere in the world, and existed before filing the patent. This includes patents and non-patent literature, such as journals, books, encyclopedias, thesis, product brochures, standards etc. Prior art also includes evidence of sale, previous public knowledge or public use.
A patent is granted only after a thorough prior art search is conducted by examiners at patent offices. So, the aim of an invalidation search is to find prior art that was not retrieved by the examiner during examination. As a result, the search challenges the validity of the granted patent.
There are various grounds for patent invalidation, including:
- Lack of novelty
- Lack of inventive-step
- Lack of industrial application
- Insufficient disclosure
- Claims not supported by matter disclosed in the specification
There are other legal grounds for patent invalidation, but from the prior-art perspective, novelty and inventive step are two primary grounds for a patent invalidation search.
SciTech Patent Art Approach to Patent Invalidation:
The primary challenge in invalidity/validity searches is to find prior art (patents/ Non-Patent Literature – NPL) that was not retrieved by patent examiners during prosecution using conventional search approaches. SciTech Patent Art (SPA) has conducted invalidation searches for over two decades and has developed a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) that includes unique approaches that often result in the identification of prior art useful to invalidate or limit the scope of the target patent.
