Details about Freedom to Operate Design Patent & Utility Patent

Freedom to operate (FTO) search is also known as ‘Freedom to practice’ (FTP) or ‘Product clearance’ search.

Legal obstacles for your product or process could primarily be valid patents, designs and (or) trademark rights. However, any other IP rights based on a particular jurisdiction (country or region) should NOT be overlooked. For example many countries in the world are NOT a member of The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) yet.

Intellectual property rights are limited to particular jurisdictions (countries or regions). No such system exists that can have a single IP protection for one invention throughout the world with a single legal action. Certainly, we know that national laws differ in different jurisdictions.

Hence before thinking of commercializing a product or a process in a particular jurisdiction, it is vital to verify the patent rights which cover the technological aspects of the product or process as well as the designs and trademarks associated.

Claims are the portion of the patent that defines the scope of the invention or protection. Often the patent claims are understood by considering the specifications including the drawings. Hence needless to say, interpretation of patent claims requires considerable skills and experience.

When a patent is issued in a country or region that claims the elements of your product or process and you wish to commercialize your product in that country or region, you have many options to verify and adopt.

• Term of issued patent: An issued utility patent remains active for 20 years from the date of filing (consider the patent term adjustments made that increases the patent life beyond 20 years period). Claims in an expired patent are in the public domain and your product is free to operate based on those features. Design patents stay live for 14 years from date of issue.

• Maintenance of issued patent: An issued utility patent may get expired before the 20 years period unless the maintenance fees are paid in time. In USPTO it is 3.5years, 7.5 years and 11.5 years from the date of the original patent grant. No maintenance fee is required for design patents.

Our solid experience in freedom to operate and infringement search and analysis with the world leading databases and tools provide us an advantage to prepare a well informative report that gives a clear idea of whether your product or process is likely to infringe any active patents and (or) trademarks. We provide the status of the patents that helps you calculate the potential of the threats and the opportunities.

ABOUT LEGAL ADVANTAGE: Legal Advantage’s mission is “To help Inventors the World Over Protect Their Ideas and Realize Their Dreams.” For nine years Legal Advantage has assisted intellectual property attorneys, patent agents, and individual inventors in fulfilling this mission. Legal Advantage is a leader in Prior Art Searches (patentability, freedom to operate (FTO), clearance, validity, invalidity, infringement and landscape analysis), Patent Illustration (Patent Drawing) and Design Services, technical translations (Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and over 20 other languages), patent trial graphics, and research. Check Sample Design Patent, Sample Utility Patents here. The real benefits derived from these services include reduced costs, faster project completion, and a higher quality end-product deliverable.
Founded by seasoned intellectual property attorneys and litigators, Legal Advantage combines unparalleled dependability, accuracy, and client service - resulting in a stellar client retention rate that is among the highest in the industry.

Legal Advantage is headquartered in the Washington DC suburb of Bethesda, MD and has offices in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Hyderabad, Ottawa, and Toronto.

For more information please visit us on the web at http://legaladvantage.net

Sample Design Patent: http://legaladvantage.net/designpatentdrawing.htm

Sample Utility Patent: http://legaladvantage.net/utilitypatentdrawing.htm