You are in the best position to know the state of the art in your area of expertise.

You are probably aware of your major competitors and the products they sell and the publications they have made. This is a good place to start, if you are confident your competitors’ products and publications are different from yours then it looks like you are headed in the right direction.

The next step would be to perform an internet search to see what other information is publicly available. If you don’t find anything, you can conduct a search of patent literature on the major Patent Office websites such as USPTO and EPO. You can also search for patents in other countries using Google patents.

The legal language used in patent documents can be difficult to interpret. If the document seems to be in your area then you’ll need to check the entire document to see if your invention is disclosed.

We do also strongly recommend having a professional patentability search done as well, to avoid making a costly mistake.

Weak or non-existent patent protection can really reduce the value of your medical device!

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