Freedom to Operate
Before launching a product or service in the market, it is important to conduct a freedom to operate (FTO) or a clearance search, to assess the risk of a potential infringement and to avoid subsequent litigations. The organizations should proactively perform an FTO search to identify patents that may potentially map the features of the product or service to be launched. Generally, the FTO search is restricted to a particular jurisdiction, however, it is prudent to search for international applications which can potentially enter the target jurisdictions to be sure of obtaining a patent. An FTO search involves a claim-specific search to locate claims that read on the features of the product or service to be launched in the market.
The benefit from the analysis
Ensure to be commercially safe
Assist the product developers to make non-infringing products from any of the claimed patent technology
Can bring in new directions and aspects of innovation by the insights generated from the expired or lapsed patents in the domain.
In the early stage, a plan-around in the R&D efforts can be done to avoid infringement and develop a legitimate product for sale in the market.
In the later stage, helpful strategic planning for the product-IP policy; Mergers, acquisitions, potential licensing, and cross-licensing prospects could be the potential way out.
End product:
Our reports focus especially on claims of a patent and the search can be restricted to the geography of interest. The results are arranged in a well-documented format, including a detailed summary of results which helps our clients quickly view the relevant results. Legal Status: - The legal status of the respective results is also mentioned in the report, so that one can notice whether the patent is in force, published, pending, or already expired. Generally, live patents or patents in force are considered for analysis.
We also go the extra mile to cover patents with term extensions. Besides we can deliver a separate list of dead patents to give an overview of the relevant assignees and products that can be free to use.
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