In general, the invention must meet 3 criteria:

1. New: The invention must not already exist in the world. It is recommended that potential patent owners keep their invention as private knowledge until the patent is accepted.
2. Inventive step: The new invention must be entirely unique, or have an obvious improvement compared to any existing invention.
3. Industrial application: The invention must be practical and be useful in an industry.

The following are largely non-patentable:

1. Discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods.
2. Plant or animal varieties or essentially biological process for the production of plants or animals, other than man-made living micro-organisms, micro-biological processes and the products of such micro- organism processes.
3. Schemes, rules or methods for doing business, performing purely mental acts or playing games, and
4. Methods for the treatment of human or animal body by surgery or therapy and diagnostic methods practised on the human or animal body. Products used in any such methods are patentable. Claims on method of treatment of human or animal body by therapy are not patentable. However, claims drafted as use of compounds to treat a medical problem (Swiss type claims) are acceptable.
5. Claims to computer programs per se.

Patent Searches are highly effective tools to obtain answers to specific technical questions. Patent Databases contain a huge volume of technology documents, in the form of patent descriptions and drawings. There are several categories of patent descriptions published namely

1. Patent applications awaiting grant of patent
2. Granted patents which are still subsisting
3. Granted patents which have expired or have been abandoned

By conducting a Patent Search, we can help you:

• Find solutions to a technical problem you are facing
• Design around a patented product or process

That’s not all, Patent Searches can also provide useful information to answer your questions on:

• What is the state of art in a particular field of technology?
• What are your competitors doing?
• What is the trend in the technological advancements?

KASS offers quality, customised research with fast turnaround and affordable pricing. We have access and the capability to search the patent database resources of US, UK, Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, Korea, Australia and 65 other countries.

KASS provides the following patent search services:

1. Equivalent Patent Search: Useful for parties wanting to know the patent portfolio of a particular owner so that a consolidated action can be taken to attack validity of the patents or a part of due diligence exercise to be undertaken prior to assignment or license of patents.
2. Prior Art (Patentability / Novelty) Search:Provide patent documents that disclose inventions close to an identified technology.
3. Infringement Search (Freedom to Operate Search):Identify subsisting patents that would bar the manufacture, use, or sale of a product, or a product made according to a process. This search is necessary before commencing manufacture or sale of a new product.
4. Validity Search:Used to attack the validity of a granted patent or to oppose a pending patent application. Also useful to determine the strength of a patent before taking an assignment or license of the patent.
5. Patent File Search:Used to determine whether the patent was prosecuted according to Patent Regulations. Often such searches are done to attack the validity of a granted patent or to oppose pending applications.
6. Competitor / Third-Party Search:All patents applied for or granted to a competitor or to any third party can be searched to learn their research strategy, identify key research staff, patent filing activities, etc. This gives a good indication of the technical areas a particular party is concentrating on.

The PCT is a treaty under the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) with 153 member countries. The PCT facilitates the filing of an international patent application for an invention by filing a single application.

A PCT application by itself does not result in the grant of a patent, since there is no such thing as an “international patent”. To obtain a grant of a patent, a PCT application, which establishes a filing date in all contracting states, must be followed up with the step of entering into national or regional phases in order to proceed towards the grant of one or more patents.