Before launching any product or service, market research and competitor analysis are essential. Additionally, a patent search must be conducted.
There are two main purposes for a patent search.
First, to ascertain whether the product or service intended for launch risks infringing existing patent rights.
This is called FTO (Freedom to Operate) analysis, an already essential procedure for global multinational corporations. Cases where unintentional infringement of registered patents leads to multi-billion won damages are commonplace.
To briefly explain FTO: first, all relevant patent data is collected and subjected to a comprehensive search and analysis. Based on this, the characteristics, differentiation points, and scope of rights of registered patents are determined. Then, potentially conflicting inventions are classified, the scope narrowed, and individual comparisons made between prior inventions and the invention in question to identify differences and assess the likelihood of infringement. Significant resources are required for data collection, analysis, and assessment.
Conducting a proper FTO analysis can be challenging for startups or small enterprises due to the substantial cost and time involved.
Nevertheless, it is advisable to conduct at least a simplified assessment of infringement risk before launching products or services. Producing a product with a clear potential for dispute carries too great a risk.
If the FTO analysis indicates a likelihood of prior art infringement, you must decide how to avoid it. If avoidance is not possible, you need to predict the risks of proceeding as is and the potential extent of damages to make a final decision.
Second, it’s for the previously mentioned purpose of enhancing product competitiveness and patent branding through technology upgrades.
Comparing invented technologies with the products/services intended for launch naturally leads to upgrading and developing the initial ideas. This is a natural process for securing product competitiveness and registering patents.
Regardless of the purpose, a proper prior art search is essential.
However, a perfectly comprehensive prior art search might be impossible. While it sounds simple, uncovering all technology worldwide is not magic and is likely unattainable. But by searching as described below, you can find most relevant art without major omissions.
Patent Databases (DB)
Korean Intellectual Property Rights Information Service (kipris.or.kr)
Google Patents (patent.google.com)
Utilizing these two patent databases is generally sufficient. While other databases provided by patent offices or commercial paid databases exist, the data difference is not significant, mainly differing in how search results are presented. KIPRIS provided by the Korean Intellectual Property Office and Google Patents usually yield the desired results adequately. Besides these, European databases provided by patent offices and paid databases are numerous, but the data difference is not large, mainly varying in the method of presenting search results. The KIPRIS provided by the Korean Intellectual Property Office and Google Patents are generally sufficient to obtain the desired results.
Starting with Keywords
Begin by lightly entering words considered core keywords into the search bar to grasp the general trend of related patents and identify key keywords. Searching competitors’ patents first can help uncover keywords more easily.
Let’s take the actual example of a fire extinguisher spray nozzle.
First, the structure of a fire extinguisher is configured as shown below. Our area of interest is the spray nozzle part.
Let’s use KIPRIS. The search keywords are “fire extinguisher” and “nozzle”
1,894 patents are found. However, it’s highly likely that not all these patents pertain specifically to fire extinguisher nozzles. Probably about half are irrelevant.
Identifying Patent Classifications: IPC, CPC
Therefore, for efficient patent searching, inputting patent classification codes along with keywords is effective.
Patent classification codes are essentially a technology classification system created by agreement among various countries to facilitate prior art searches.
When a patent is filed, each country’s patent office classifies the technology and assigns classification codes. Since all filed patents are assigned these codes, using them allows for efficient investigation of prior art without omissions.
There are two main types of patent classification codes:
IPC (Int’l Patent Classification) and CPC (Cooperative Patent Classification) codes.
IPC and CPC are often identical. CPC codes are a further subdivision of IPC classifications. KIPRIS supports both IPC and CPC searching, while Google Patents supports CPC searching.
However, searching solely by classification code can yield too many prior inventions, making it humanly impossible to process the volume of results.
Classification Code Search Volume Example
IPC Code G06Q 50/10 (Systems or methods specially adapted for specific business sectors)
: KIPRIS search results: 40,777
CPC Code G06Q 50/10
: KIPRIS search results: 38,098, Google Patents search results: 129,878
Furthermore, manually tracking and assigning classification codes based on the code system is inefficient. Technology is vast and diverse, and classification codes are correspondingly complex.
Instead, it is more efficient to inversely identify the classification codes assigned to the most relevant patent application found in the initial keyword search, and then use those codes for a secondary search.
In the fire extinguisher nozzle example, the initial search revealed the IPC code A62C 31/02. Combining this with major keywords creates a good search query.
Finding one truly relevant prior art document to refine the search.
In the case of the fire extinguisher nozzle, searching with just two words yielded about 1,800 prior patents, which is a manageable number. However, sometimes major keywords can return too many prior art results.
In such cases, it’s efficient to mix keyword searches and classification searches, using them intersectionally and progressively refining the search.
Initially, aim to find just one relevant prior art document.
Try entering all conceivable keywords into the search field. Use AND conditions with enough keywords so that perhaps only one result, or none, appears. Then, gradually remove less important keywords until a small number of results are returned. From these, you can identify one highly relevant document.
Once you find that one document, you can extract a wealth of information from its specification. The specification lists the IPC and CPC codes meticulously assigned by the patent office’s classification experts.
Additionally, a list of highly relevant prior patents cited during the examination process is provided. The title of the invention and the abstract can also yield good keywords.
Now, organize the keywords and patent classifications (IPC, CPC) extracted from the identified prior art, search again, and from the newly found prior art, look for cited documents or keyword hints to further refine the search query, ensuring comprehensive coverage of patent documents.
When viewing the identified specifications, review the claims and drawings first, referencing the guide on how to read specifications, rather than reading the entire document.
In the fire extinguisher nozzle example, the initial search identified the IPC code as A62C 31/02. Furthermore, key terms like “spray” (분사), “nozzle”, “extinguisher” were found in the prior art.
The data was narrowed down to 235 results.
Since recent technology trends are more important, sort the results by “filing date” and add further IPC codes or keywords to narrow the search volume for a subsequent search. We found about 3 highly relevant documents.
Analyzing Key Patents
Now, examine the retrieved prior patents one by one, selecting the most relevant ones. Then, look at other prior patents cited during the examination of those patents, or subsequent patent applications that were rejected citing those patents.
Following the citation and cited-by information makes finding relevant patents much easier. At this point, you should have a sufficient grasp of the patent trends related to fire extinguisher nozzles.
