Freedom to operate search - patents
We provide you with qualified information for your FTO. When you are going to introduce a product into a new market or are in a process of developing one, the first step is to make sure you have the right to operate.
Is there any protection you need to consider before starting to sell the product? One of the prerequisites for your success is to look into what is already protected. Let us do a freedom-to-operate search, where PRV provides you with qualitative information to support your decision-making for enabling you to maximize your investments and reduce the risk of infringement. An FTO search carried out by us focuses on patents in Europe and the United States.
The result
The results of an FTO search are presented in a report that helps you identify the risk of infringement. The report contains categorized citations and comments over the parts that the patent examiner finds relevant. PRV does not, however, state an opinion regarding the risk of infringement.
Our searches
The search is carried out by one or more patent examiners, specialized in that technical field. Prior to the search, a patent examiner will contact you to confirm the scope of the search, the cost and the delivery time. Using our advanced search tools, we have access to all major patent databases. However, we reserve the right to decline a search request, in such cases as the product’s market is insufficiently covered by our databases. For example, for the Asian market we can only search and report Japanese, Chinese and Korean documents with an English translated text.
The benefit of the service
We provide you with qualitative information that gives you a good indication of the risk of infringement and a good starting point for your investments.
Request a service
You order services securely through our online service PRV Information Secure, where you also download your report.
Order with our online service PRV Information Secure (opens in a new window)
What does it cost?
You will always get a personal quote on your order. The price depends on the estimated time required to carry out the exact information you need. Hourly price for consultancy services, SEK 1700.
To make a FTO search with aim to find documents that could be of interest in an infringement perspective, takes a broad search. A search that most likely involves 1000's of documents. An extensive search result like this could be time consuming to evaluate and categorize. The cost for this kind of search will therefore most likely exceed 35 000 SEK.
Delivery
Due to the large variation in scope size of an FTO search, the delivery is by agreement with you.
Here you can read about our secure delivery methods: Delivery
Important to know
The existence of a similar patent does not, in itself, mean a hindrance to a new product. An important part of the evaluation process of a patent is to be able to secure the legal status and the geographical area. As a support in this work you can order an Excel-file for your FTO-result. In the Excel-file we have linked the patent numbers to the Espacenet database from where the information can be retrieved.
For contact and questions
If you have any questions, you are welcome to contact PRV Consulting.
Telephone: +46 8 782 28 00
Additional service: FTO follow-up
Developing new products is usually a long and time consuming process. Depending on which stage of development the FTO search has been conducted there may be reason to perform a ‘follow-up’ a supplementary search that focuses on the most recent published patent documents that can be of relevance. A cost efficient follow-up search is facilitated by the availability of the previous search profile, so when you foresee that your project could benefit from a follow-up search, please inform us and we will save your search profile. Please note that in accordance with PRV:s strict security policy this is not otherwise done.
Additional service: Patent Family Search
There is also a possibility to use our Information specialists to make the Patent Family Search for you. You will get a report showing a clear overview of the status and geographical coverage over the patent in question and where obvious information is missing the legal status will, if possible, be confirmed. To perform this search as cost effectively as possible you choose the patents that are of particular interest to you and then order a Patent Family Search on these. If you wish to complement an FTO search with a Patent Family Search, reduced rates are available.
Additional service: Monitoring services
Please bear in mind that a result from a search reflects the situation of today. However, the patent documentation increases with 10 000’s of newly published patent documents every week, a fact which of course could have an effect on your search result. If you should be in need of continuous information – talk to us and we will prepare a monitoring profile.
Read more about monitoring services
Please observe
We aim to carry out all requests accurately and thoroughly, but due to the extensive amount of information involved we cannot guarantee that the results are always exhaustive.