How to strategize a search when there is no prior art for invalidation?
In the practical world, circumstances are not always in our favor. Sometimes, indeed, we don’t have suitable weapons to fight the battle. On the contrary, the opponent’s counterattack is so strong that we get a sense of vulnerability. Co-relating the above lines to high-profile litigation cases, oftentimes there are circumstances, where round after round of […]
Patent invalidation hacks in the semiconductor industry
Patent filing in the semiconductor industry has exploded in recent years as new technologies like the internet of things, machine learning, and artificial intelligence have rapidly expanded in the chip market. There are an estimated 50 billion connected devices globally, according to Ericsson. Chips are no longer the preserve of mobile phones, but can also […]
What are the roadblocks in sequence searching and how to overcome them?
Imagine this – You are a leading biopharmaceutical player whose R&D team has developed a novel product. Before launching the product, you want to make sure your product is not infringing on anyone else’s patents. There are various costs involved in manufacturing and marketing this product, and you do not want to get entwined in […]
How to Invalidate Pharma Patents on “Obvious to Try” grounds?
As a litigator, you love killer prior art, don’t you? A perfect Tier-I reference(s) would make life so easy and court proceedings bliss. But what if killer prior art does not exist? The next possible solution would be to prove ‘lack of inventive step’ based on obviousness. In pharmaceutical patents especially, obviousness is a hot […]
Finding system prior-art in old battered phones (Patent invalidation)
Imagine this – A leading smartphone player comes to you with a litigation-grade search project for a smartphone-related patent. If the fact that this patent was in litigation does not sound challenging enough, here’s some additional info – The patent-in-suit has already been through multiple rounds of searching by numerous IP vendors, and the patent stood […]
How System Prior Art can help videogame companies avert patent litigation?
“Gamers are the most passionate people in the world and it’s painful when you make them unhappy”. Jack Tretton, President, and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America (2013) We have to agree with Mr. Tretton’s characterization, for a lot of us, are a part of this gaming coterie. Talking about our coterie, another segment you […]
How to find prior art without spending countless hours on citation analysis?
Have you ever been lost in the ocean of cited references in a patent invalidation search? Citation analysis, although a powerful strategy, is often limited to the second or third generation of cited patents. It is difficult to go beyond because as you go from the third to fourth generation patents, the number of patent […]
How we found a prior art in patent invalidity case from a previous lawsuit
Has this ever happened to you during a litigation grade search that you found prior art in complaint documents? Yes, those very documents which in a previous infringement lawsuit was used to invalidate the claims of a patent? Not yet? Grab a cup of Joe as today I’ll narrate the tale of how we found […]
How to find prior art when mathematical expressions are part of the claim elements?
Finding prior art for a patent that has a mathematical expression or a complex equation in its claim is hard. If you have worked on such cases before, you would know it is not like another keyword-based search that can be done by anyone. Spending more time would also not give you the desired result. […]
Prior Art Search: Digging Deep into Combination Art
As a litigator, you love killer prior art, don’t you? But sometimes you must make do with 103-type if you are in the US. The sound of 103-type just made you sigh, didn’t it? It is justified too. Weak prior art can create conflicts for any attorney in any case. Fighting with a 103-type prior […]
How intellectual curiosity helped us identify a killer prior art in a short timeframe?
Have you ever faced a situation where you had to find killer prior art in a limited time frame? Let me tell you what happened when we faced a similar challenge recently. In this case client wanted a killer art, but within a week. Tom, a European litigation attorney, came to us with a prior […]
Google Patent Search – A Definitive Guide for All Kind of Patent Searches
If you are planning to conduct a Google Patent Search and want to try your hands on Google Patents, you landed on the right page. This is one of the most comprehensive guides ever written on the web on Google Patents Search. Even if you have already used Google Patents search engine and are at […]
Prior art search: When simple and obvious concepts are patented in a different industry
Patent attorneys are often in a zero-sum game when it comes to litigation. Wins are attributed to how strong the prior art is with the attorney. My job is to find this prior art. Most patent search companies run patent searches like every prior art search is same. If I have to be raw and […]
Non-patent Search: How we killed an ecigarette patent
Has this ever happened to you – You are conducting a prior-art search and something keeps on jabbing at the back of your head, questioning whether you have explored everything? Well, it happens to most of us, particularly while exploring non-patent literature. Let’s assume, that you have finally managed to exhaust all the patent literature […]
Books: A wonderful source of finding prior art!
“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” ― Jorge Luis Borges I’ve heard this quote many times, yet hadn’t felt it until now. Recently, I was analyzing the stats of the projects we’ve done over the last year and was very happy that in the majority of the cases we […]
Case of really tough LED patent previously under lawsuits and part of PTAB petitions.
“My client wants a fresh search on a patent about LED substrates” emailed an attorney – our repeat client – on a Friday. “Of course, we can help you as this is relatable technology”, replied a new associate from our Sales team after having checked with me twice on a Friday night call, “We are […]