We can take care of gathering key fundamental information that you need to evaluate your research and development department's inventions or publications in your technology sector.
Our patent search experts are engineers and natural scientists with industry experience who work as official patent examiners, too. They discuss the search objective and the goal of the search in detail with you. We search all important databases and analyse the documents using the available full text and figures for each request. You determine the depth of the analysis and the format of the results.

• Prior to applying for a patent and the official search by the relevant patent office, we can provide you with an overview of the state of the art, by means of a subject search.

• If you are planning to file opposition or an action for nullity, we can search for publications that could challenge the novelty or inventive step of the protected invention, which is known as a validity search.

• Before manufacturing a new product or using a new process, we can provide you with information on IP rights that might be infringed by your product or process. Our analysis includes as much detail as you wish concerning the scope of protection in the patent claims and the legal status, by means of a freedom-to-operate search (FTO).
• Before your R&D department develops something new, we can provide you with an overview of the state of the art in the relevant field. This search can also serve as the starting point for ongoing monitoring of this particular technology sector and of your competitors, and is known as a subject search.
• We will keep you regularly informed about relevant, newly published patent applications concerning the developments of your competitors or your technology sector. Unimportant documents are filtered out thanks to our detailed search profile. The results are prepared in such a way that you can immediately make use of them, which is known as technology monitoring. We can also monitor individual patent documents for any changes in the current state of proceedings by means of legal status monitoring.

• We use professional search tools such as EPOQUE, the search system used by the European Patent Office, and primarily STN for searches in the chemistry and biotechnology sectors. Other hosts and specific databases can be used as required.

• If needed, we can deliver the results to you within just a few days – for example, when a filing date is about to expire.

• Confidentiality and data security are standard for us. Upon request, you can use our Data Exchange Platform for confidential data transfer.