1. Prior Art (Analyze the Entire Document As a Disclosure)

Example Prior Art Search - Worksheet

A prior art search focuses on answering the following questions.

1. Prior Art (analyze the entire document as a disclosure)

a. What has been done and how has the technology developed?

b. What are the earliest references?

c. What are the most recent references?

d. Why were changes made?

e. What were major milestones in development?

f. What are the closest references?

If there is very close art, you would also want to consider clearance (attorney opinion required).

2. Freedom to Operate (analyze the claims)

a. Who are the major players?

b. What are the currently active patents to consider, if any?

c. How is this invention different?

Problem:

Problem solved / Key idea / Synonyms, product names, chemical composition, parts and relationship of parts, components, etc.
What is it:
(Structure)
What it does:
How it is made:

The search should focus on answering the following questions, which are listed in order of importance:

1. What is it?

2. What does it do? What is it used for? How is it used?

3. How is it made?

The process found in instructions 1-5 below should be used in at least two search tools (Google Patents, Espacenet, PATENTSCOPE, The Lens, etc.). Non-patent literature sources should also be searched and the choice of sources depends on the technology area. (Google Scholar, Lens.org, ORCID, NCBI Databases, NLM (National Library of Medicine), PubMed, etc.)

1. Google and Google Images Search String
Use the key words to precisely describe “what it is”. Look at Google images to see whether the images correspond to the subject. Change the description if necessary to ensure the best results. Look for competitors and any related patents. / Number of Results
Google Images
2. Google Patents Search String
Use the best search string from above and look for closely related patents. Text search for key words to be certain that the document is relevant. Copy close references below for later review. Put notes and highlight the closest references. / Number of Results
3. “Citations” or “Cited By” Searches
Closest references can be used as a starting point to find other documents of interest. Looking backward and forward may be useful in finding documents even closer to the idea of interest. / Number of Results
4. Bibliographic Searches = Inventor or company
Using the inventor or company can be useful in finding documents. All of the important competitors or suppliers of material should be verified to determine whether they have related patents. / Number of Results
5. Espacenet and Classes Search Strings
Class codes are found on patent documents and by using class codes you can search clusters of documents in specific technology areas. / Number of Results
The Lens – Verification, Analysis and Sharing
Useful for Boolean searches with very high relevancy of search results. You can save portfolios of documents, save searches, share information and set up alerts. / Number of Results

Example Prior Art Search - Worksheet

Invention
Art
(Assignee) / Element1 / Element2 / Element3 / Element4 / Element5 / Element6 / Notes