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5. FTO’s – What are they?

FTO = Freedom To Operate (it’s a type of patent database search + opinion)

• What are they?

• What is their benefit?

• What do they cost?

• Are they recommended?

• Other types of searches are:

� Patent novelty search by subject matter

� Name search

� Infringement search (essentially an FTO)

� Landscape search

• Professional searchers subscribe to up-to-date patent databases and use international patent classifications to narrow down searches

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Do It Yourself FTO search

• You have access to free patent databases and can do your own searching –

both novelty searches and FTO searches, where:

� Novetly searches – finding relevant prior art

� FTO searches – finding someone else’s patent you may infringe

• Important to choose correct key word combination to reduce number of ‘hits’,

and use several combinations, eg.

� “bottle” + “vacuum” + “waist”

� “bottle” + “vacuum” + “panel”

• If possible, restrict search to date range for only live patents, ie. 20 years + 2

year buffer

• Not all patents found will be ‘live’ – need to cross check to local patent

database to determine status

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Do It Yourself FTO search, cont

• Free international websites:

� Google patents - www.google.com.au/patents

� European Patent Office – https://worldwide.espacenet.com

� Patent Lens - https://www.lens.org/lens/search

� Amberscope - https://www.amberscope.com/ (Griffith Hack’s own patent

search engine – better for novelty searches, not FTOs)

• Each Patent Office usually has its own patent search site:

� Australia - http://pericles.ipaustralia.gov.au/ols/auspat/

� United States - http://patft.uspto.gov/ (not user friendly)

� UK - https://www.gov.uk/search-for-patent

� New Zealand - https://www.iponz.govt.nz/

� Germany - https://www.dpma.de/english/patent/search/index.html

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• Now do your own FTO search! Use European Patent Office website

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