Litigation Prior Art Search Case Studies

FIELD CASE STUDIES

PROBLEM:
Traditional patent research methods consume incredible time and money, are cumbersome, and do not allow support rapid analysis or strategy .

SOLUTION:
CONCEPT / CLAIMS SEARCH quickly identifies, and relevancy ranks the most important prior art.

CASE STUDIES (LITIGATION DEFENSE) [The relevancy-ranking capabilities are similarly used OFFENSIVELY for rapidly identifying licensing opportunities and possible occurrences of infringement.] Two prior art searches were conducted at two of America’s leading IP law firms, each representing clients defending different infringement suits. In both cases, the firms had already completed costly, time consuming patent searches to identify the best prior art that could invalidate the asserted patents ($30,000 and 3 months, and $50,000 and 5 months, respectively). In both cases, the firms had previously identified what they believed to be the best prior art – patents that would be used to argue invalidation – prior to testing PatentCafe’s CLAIMS / CONCEPT search tools.

SEARCH PROCESS In each case, the entire text of the asserted patent claims, used as the search query, was simply pasted into the CLAIMS / CONCEPT search box. Both searches returned a relevancy-ranked search result in less than 1/2 minute.

RESULTS First Case Results: the already identified “best prior art” was returned as result #1, with an additional 150 patents following with a declining relevancy from 97%, downward. Second Case Results: the already identified “best prior art” was returned as result #2 (98%). The firm had not identified the patent that our ICO-GPS identified as #1 (99%).

CASE STUDIES (LICENSING OPPORTUNITIES) [Carrot and stick licensing methods both require the researcher to identify highly relevant, yet later prior art than the subject patent.] The intellectual property licensing manager for a petroleum corporation was tasked with licensing the company’s oil pipe technology into potentially lucrative new market segments. The manager exhausted traditional patent search methods: Search targeted patent classifications. Search targeted industry keywords for oil, water, sewage, mining industries.

SEARCH PROCESS The entire text of the most important patent claims of the subject patent were entered as the search query. The search returned a relevancy-ranked search result set in less than 1/2 minute.

RESULTS Identification of the medical device industry immediately occurred on the first page of the search results. A previously undiscovered (and non-obvious) body of works relating to medical needles paralleled the invention focus of oil pipes in the mining industry. Patent assignees in medical device industry were then targeted as a potential new licensing opportunities, and traditional product analysis could proceed with focus and purpose.

These are just a few of the examples where claims-based and relevancy ranked results have resulted in the potential savings or revenue opportunities into the millions of dollars. PatentCafe is interested in hearing your actual case results.

MORE INFORMATION:

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