The Freedom to Operate Search Failures Nobody Talks About (Until It’s Too Late)
Most Freedom to Operate search failures don’t happen because the analyst missed an obvious patent. They happen because the analyst applied the wrong mental model to the job entirely. An FTO search is not a prior art hunt. It’s not an invalidity exercise. It’s a forward-looking risk assessment against live, enforceable patent rights. When analysts […]
2 Minutes of AI Patent Search & 1 Missed Non-English Filing Will Cost $4M in Litigation
You run the AI search. The tool returns 40 references in under two minutes. The top results look relevant. The technology domain aligns. The concept matches. You feel like the search is heading somewhere. This is precisely when the risk starts. AI tools have changed the pace of patent searching. Semantic search finds conceptually similar […]
6 AI Tools, One Sequence: GreyB’s Six-Layer SEP Patent Invalidation Process
Of the 800-plus SEP invalidation searches GreyB completed in the past year, the decisive prior art came from outside patent databases in most cases. The key evidence often did not come from a granted patent or a published research paper. It came from a 3GPP working group proposal, a draft contribution, an IEEE meeting document, […]
Samsung Lost $278 Million. Google Challenged the Same Patents at PTAB in 2026!
Fifty-one proceedings in March 2026. The number alone is the first signal worth reading. By the time these petitions were filed, Director Squires had centralized institution decisions, removed diagnostic reasoning from summary denials, and presided over an institution rate that bottomed near zero in the October-November 2025 window. The practitioners who filed in March knew […]
Beyond What AI Can Search: How Technical Context Cracked a Patent Invalidity Case
Ryan Mercer, Senior IP Counsel at a mid-size audio technology firm, was three months into an active patent infringement lawsuit. The plaintiff held a multi-mode audio signal decoder patent, a 150-word independent claim covering a specific spectral processing behavior that Ryan’s firm’s products were alleged to infringe on. Settlement was not the preferred path. The […]
Hidden Risks in Chemical FTO Searches & 6 Practical Strategies for a Successful Product Launch
In the chemical domain, freedom-to-operate (FTO) risk extends far beyond what is immediately visible from a product’s composition or a process flow diagram. Unlike mechanical or electronic inventions, where infringement analysis is often confined to directly claimed structural or functional features, chemical products and processes operate within a highly interconnected ecosystem. At the same time, […]
4 Expert-Validated FTO Tools to Simplify Complex Patent Searches in 2025
Traditional Boolean-heavy methods, when performing Freedom to Operate (FTO) search, once served well, but they now feel like hand tools in a power-tool era. Spending hours crafting Boolean strings, reviewing endless irrelevant results, and manually chasing down legal status updates, only to end up with static reports or internal analyses that go stale within days. […]
3 Patent strength checks that make or break a litigation
The hard truth is that a patent might appear strong on paper but falter under the scrutiny of courtrooms, IPRs, or post-grant reviews. Take the case of Masimo vs. Apple. In 2020, Masimo filed a lawsuit against Apple, asserting 12 of its patents. Apple countered with Inter Partes Reviews (IPRs) and invalidated 8 of those […]
Advance patent databases to strengthen your patent invalidation case
In 2022, over three million patent applications were filed worldwide. This rise brings a challenging question: How do you sift through the massive sea of patent data to find exactly what you need? Patent databases are at the heart of any strategic patent search. These tools provide a gateway to a wealth of technical insights, […]
*Not to Miss* 10 Patent Search Tips by Expert Researchers
In 2022, over 3.4 million patent applications were filed globally, with a substantial portion published each year. This huge data makes it all the more difficult to perform efficient patent searches, which lay the groundwork for prior art, assess licensing opportunities, or safeguard one’s own innovations. However, with the right techniques, it is possible to […]
Don’t Launch Your Product Without It: The Immediate Need for FTO Search
Dow Chemical Co. (Dow) sued Nova Chemicals Corp. (Nova) for patent infringement in 2010, arguing that Nova’s polyethylene plastic products infringed Dow’s patent. Dow Chemical won its case in an Ontario court in 2017 and then at an appeals court, receiving a CAD 645 million ($482 million) infringement award. The award was among the biggest […]
Decoding the Latest Drug Patent Infringement Cases in the Pharma Industry
The pharmaceutical industry is known for its high-stakes drug patent infringement cases. Recently, several industry leaders, such as AbbVie, Bayer, and Cipla, have been involved in high-stakes litigation cases, garnering the attention of our patent invalidity team. This analysis of recent 5 drug patent infringement cases highlights the specific patent under scrutiny and the strategies […]
Strategic Considerations After The New “Skilled Searcher” Standard For IPR Estoppel
Ironburg Inventions, known for its SCUF controllers, claimed that Valve’s Steam Controller infringed on its patents. Specifically, the patents in question were related to the back paddle design of controllers, a feature that SCUF Gaming has heavily marketed and patented. However, it isn’t these details of the case that make it worth mentioning but the […]
Top 13 AI-based Patent Search Databases for your Patent Search Needs
AI (Artificial Intelligence) has transformed intellectual property (IP) by reducing human effort and enabling patent experts to refine how they discover, analyze, and leverage intellectual property. It’s no surprise that a Google search for AI-based patent search databases will yield hundreds, if not thousands, of platforms available at your disposal. To make your search for […]
5 Powerful techniques to successfully invalidate telecom patents
In September, Lenovo Group paid a hefty $140 million in a SEPs infringement lawsuit by InterDigital. In the same month, Xiaomi and Oppo were sued by Panasonic over 4G patent infringement, adding to the legal battles faced by Chinese smartphone giants. Patent litigation has become increasingly prominent in the telecom sector. It’s no longer a […]
Exploring ChatGPT’s Capabilities & Limitations in Prior Art Search
In a world where ChatGPT, the cutting-edge AI language model by OpenAI, has rapidly transformed industries, the intellectual property (IP) sector is no exception. Its remarkable ability to extract profound insights from vast data pools raises intriguing questions about its impact on the IP industry, particularly in prior-art searches. As research analysts, our curiosity led […]