The importance of patent searching to save cost, time

Jul 012019

It is an evident fact that patents are the safest way to protect your invention and save it. Patent saves your overall cost, time and efforts as well. If you know that your invention is patented, you feel relaxed and do not worry about the future infringements. Though filing a patent for your invention takes a lot of time and effort, the after-results are tremendous and compensates for all the money you spent. There are so many steps you must follow before Filing a patent and while you are on the process. Because of its complexity, you must hire a competent Patent Attorney in India who will understand your requirements and guide you accordingly.

Common Mistakes

One of the most common mistakes that people (in this case, an organisation) do is think that their invention is unique without any research. Research plays a very important part before you think of filing a patent for your product, idea or invention to ensure that the same idea has not been patented earlier by somebody else. Usually, people think that if they have not heard or seen something similar to their invention, it is not in the market. This gives them false confidence to go ahead of the patent filing process and later have to bear losses when infringement cases are filed against them.

Most of the investors, especially the new aged entrepreneurs start their own research in order to find out if a similar idea or products are already available in the market. Doing your own research is the best thing you can start off as it saves a lot of costs which is initially a vital aspect with any investor. Secondly, when you do a research for yourself, you are very much confident about the results. But, hiring a professional Patent Attorney in India is something every investor must go through. There are multiple ways by which you can search for patents but none of them is as accurate as of the ways professional people work.

The need for Patent searching

As discussed above, patent searching is the first thing you must do before even thinking to file a patent for your invention. Filing a patent is a very complex process and involves hefty cost as well. It is very sure that nobody would want to spend a lot of money, time and effort in the patent filing process only to find out later that their invention already existed in the market and they had no clue about it. The money and time involved in the process will not be returned and that will hugely impact your business which has not even been started. This not only costs you money, efforts and time but also leaves a huge impact on your confidence to go further. Some of the reasons why you should do patent searching are

Patent searching saves money for the future. If proper searching is not done, one infringement case against you might cost you big
If you know you have done the research properly, you get assured about your invention and proceed with a positive mindset which is very important.
Not only financially, but a proper patent search also makes you secured in legal matters as well.
Being an entrepreneur all your efforts should be towards giving your best in terms of what you deliver and not wasting time and energy thinking if your invention is unique or not. Proper patent search gives you that leverage.
A proper patent search ensures expedited process. Since you already know that there is nothing similar to your invention in the market, the patent filing process becomes a lot easier and quicker.

Different patent searching alternatives

You must definitely be thinking that if you can do a search for your patent all by yourself, why to spend money and time hiring a Patent Attorney. The answer is, yes, you can definitely do a manual search all by yourself but you will still need proper guidance from somebody who is a professional in this field.

There are many cheap patent search options available to you over the internet and you can avail them very easily as well but you will never be assured with the quality of searches it provides. You just cannot sit back and relax thinking that if you have done the patent searches from these cheap alternatives, they will solve the purpose for you. In fact, in many cases, the person going for these sources has to incur a huge loss. Firstly, because they pay to these sources and secondly when the infringement cases are filed against the person. This becomes a huge problem if you are a startup as you cannot afford to invest so much time and money in patent searches. Hire a competent professional and get your work done at one go.

It is very clear by now that patent searches are the most effective way to reduce infringement risks and helps a lot in planning the patent filing strategy. If you are clear and confident with your searches, you can proceed ahead without any doubts to begin the filing process. A proper search identifies the similarities and differences between the closest invention like you in the market and gives you proper insight as to how you proceed.