As they say, “Great minds think alike!” But you’re an entrepreneur. You thrive on having original ideas that no one else has ever dreamed of.
You want to file a patent, which means you need to be the first one to think of your idea.
FIRST THINGS FIRST: YOU GOTTA DO A PATENT SEARCH
A patent search is the best way to find out if you’re first with your idea- or if someone else has beaten you to get a patent.
Doing a patent search doesn’t have to be difficult (although some patent lawyers will charge you like it is).
There are two ways you can do a patent search.
Option 1: Use iSearch.ai tool
The iSearch.ai tool is a patent search engine that uses AI to do a better patent search.
Full disclosure, this is a tool that we built at KISSPatent, you can learn more about why we did it here.
The big advantage this tool has is that it will search for patents depending on your idea. You just need to register, describe your idea, and our AI will do the rest.
After using iSearch.ai, you’ll be able to know:
How your idea compares to others a.k.a. has someone already patented your idea?
Which companies are showing interest in ideas similar to yours
Relevant keywords to make a keyword search (which we’ll discuss later on this blog post)
The best part of using this tool is that, after doing so, you’ll be able to download a report with all your results, including similar patents, competitors, and relevant keywords.
We built iSearch.ai becaue there needed to be a better, more efficient way to search for patents. As nobody was doing it, we decided to build it ourselves. iSearch.ai is the result of more than 20 years of experience working with innovators, and you can use it for free!
Option 2: Do a keyword-based patent search
We outline some of the simple ways that you can start to search for patents and other publications, called ‘prior art’- for example, by using the simple Google Patents search engine.
Publication of an idea identical to yours in any of these sources can count against you for getting a patent.
Why?
Because one of the requirements is that you must fulfill in the patent process is to have an original idea- one that hasn’t been published before.
Let’s start with a patent-pending search. In this search, we’ll look for patents and pending patent applications, which are applications that been published but haven’t yet become patents.
We recommend starting with Google Patents, which offers a really simple patent search interface. Just enter a few keywords and then go!
If you used our iSearch.ai tool before, you can get a list of relevant keywords to search for patents similar to your idea.
Pro tip: Check the box marked “include non-patent literature” (illustrated below) and you’ll simultaneously search patents and other types of publications, like scientific articles.
If you have the name of a competitor, you can use the Advanced Google Patent Search. Enter the name of your competitor in the box marked “Original Assignee”.
Wondering if your idea is patentable? Have a question about this article? We can answer all of your questions — just hit "contact us" down below!
