Patent Search in India

A patent is the monopoly right acquired by a person who has invented a new and useful thing or an improvement of an existing article or a new process of making the same. This exclusive right cannot be granted unless it has been approved by the controller. Thus it is extremely necessary to have made a patent search. A patent search is required to be conducted by every inventor to trace whether his invention is infringing or violating the rights of any other patent registered or published earlier. An authorized invention is the property of an inventor. Patent search is done by several of the consulting firms, which helps the inventors to do such search and gives the consolidated result to the inventor. As far as India is concerned, online patent search facility for both published patent applications and granted patents are available. A patent search is a part of prior art search which constitutes all information that has been made available to the public in any form before a given date that might be relevant to a patent's claims of originality. If an invention has been provided in prior art, a patent on that particular invention is not valid. The search for prior art helps prove the novel and unobvious legal conditions that are required for a patent to be granted. If a patent search has not been made by the applicant, it may result into rejection of the patent application by the controller.