Should You Really be Using a Patent Attorney to Perform a Patent Search?

Why Running Off to Your Attorney Too Early May be Your First Mistake in the Patent and Product Search Process!

 

We Search the World!

SearchQuest™ Patent Search is the only search company offering independent, comprehensive searches of the entire world for the purpose of uncovering published or previously issued patents. Our aggressive patent and product research procedures include going back hundreds of years, rather than the convenient 40 years covered by most searching techniques. Just as important, we can search for products currently being sold but not patented.

SearchQuest™ Patent Search provides critical and pertinent information to anyone or any group trying to invent or invest in a product or process, and to anyone working with intellectual property. 

You should be using SearchQuest™ Patent Search if you are one of the following:

• Corporate or individual inventor
• Angel or venture capital investor
• Attorney or law firm engaged in IP work on behalf of clients

SearchQuest ™ Patent Search provides you with all of the research and information you will need to make intelligent patent and product decisions.

*A LegalZoom Patent search costs U.S. $299.00 for a search of the United States Patent & Trademark Office files. The equivalent search by SearchQuest costs U.S. $249.00.

Facts About Patents
Patents are authorized by the U.S. Constitution. In Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8, it states that “The Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”

There are three types of patents: utility patents, design patents and plant patents. Utility patents provide legal protection for advances in applied technology and science. Design patents provide protection for new artistic designs on manufactured items. Plant patents provide protection for new asexual plants.

20 years from the date of filing is the term of a utility patent.

A Provisional Patent Application (PPA) is the way to reserve “a place in line” and your right to file for a utility patent for up to one year after the PPA is filed.

A utility patent allows the inventor to legally enforce excluding others from making, using, importing or selling or offering for sale his or her invention for the duration of the patent.

One year is the time an inventor has from the first offer for sale of the invention or first public disclosure to file a utility patent.

Facts About Trademarks
Trademarks – are words, names, symbols, devices and/or images which are applied to products or used in connection with goods or services to identify their source. Famous examples are APPLE for computers and EXXON for oil exploration, refining and distribution.

Consumer confusion is the standard of whether a trademark is being infringed.

The life of a trademark is indefinite and a trademark will last as long as the company continues to use the mark.

The Coca Cola Company’s trademarks have been valued at over $80.0 billion.

Obtaining a federal registration for a trademark provides a rebuttable “legal presumption” that the owner of the mark has the exclusive right to use the mark throughout all states and territories of the United States (15 USC §1057(c)).