Patentability An Introduction:
“Patentability” refers to the substantive conditions that must be met, for an invention, to be patented. The invention must satisfy the requirements under the context of a national or international patent system. An invention is patentable if it meets the related legal conditions to be granted a patent.
The invention must meet the following patentability requirements:
- The invention must be a patentable subject matter. Patent systems worldwide have a list of patentable and unpatentable subject matter. Therefore, the invention must exist in the list of patentable subject matter.
- The invention must be novel. It must not be already known to the public anywhere in the world.
- The invention must not be obvious to the person skilled in the art, i.e. the invention must be different from what a person skilled in the art can do OR the invention should have substantial improvement/technical advance over the existing prior art or have economic significance, or both.
- The invention must have some utility or industrial application. It must also be useful to the society i.e. the invention needs to be able to be used or made in any kind of industry.
So, a patentability search is conducted on an invention to check all the above substantive conditions.
What is the need to conduct a patentability search?
The foremost need to assess patentability is to know whether any prior art exists or not for the invention. This will enable the inventor/organization to check for novelty and non-obviousness of the invention.
The patenting process is very lengthy and an expensive activity as it incurs official fees at the patent office along with any professional charges. In addition, it takes about 3-4 years for a patent application to get granted, during which it undergoes a thorough examination process by examiners at the patent office.
Therefore, it is very important to conduct self-due diligence, before applying for a patent, to check if any prior art exists that could potentially hinder the patenting process.
Moreover, an inventor or an organization can use patentability searchh as one of their tools to make a decision on their investments to be made in the research of an invention. Patentability searches will enable the inventors or organizations to modify or discard their invention.
In most situations, a patentability search provides information useful in drafting a patent application. Assuming the invention is patentable, the results from the patentability search will help in defining novel features of the invention, clearly stating how the current invention differs from prior art, laying out advantages of the current invention and applicability of the invention.
The results from patentability search results could also be used as citations in support of the patent application. This will help during patent prosecution and thus increasing the probability of the patent application being granted.
To summarize, patentability search is beneficial in the following ways:
- Change the direction of the research
- Areas to be focused on and areas to be ignored in light of the existing patented technologies
- Avoid legal litigation of infringement suits
- Drafting an effective patent application or office action responses
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