Patent Invalidity Search | Patent Validity & Invalidity Search Services | IIP Search

IIP Search offers expert Patent Invalidity (Validity & Invalidity) Search services to help law firms, corporations, and innovators evaluate or challenge patent claims. Our team conducts comprehensive prior art searches across global databases, delivering detailed reports, claim charts, and evidence analysis. Ideal for litigation, IP due diligence, or strategic decision-making, our searches ensure accuracy, confidentiality, and actionable insights for stronger legal and business outcomes.

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1. Patent Invalidity Search
Patent Validity & Invalidity Search Services
Prepared by: IIP Search
Date: October 08, 2025
This document outlines the scope, methodology, deliverables, pricing,
and timelines for professional Patent Invalidity (Validity & Invalidity)
Search services tailored for counsel, in-house legal teams, and R&D
departments.

Contents

1. Overview
2. When to Order an Invalidity Search
3. Scope & Search Strategy
4. Methodology & Databases
5. Deliverables
6. Pricing & Turnaround
7. Confidentiality & Quality Assurance
8. Case Study (Example)
9. How to Order / Contact

2. 1. Overview
What is a Patent Invalidity Search?

A Patent Invalidity Search (also called a Patent Validity/Invalidity Search) is a
targeted, prior-art investigation conducted to identify documents and evidence
that could challenge the novelty, inventive step (non-obviousness), or
enablement of a granted patent or a pending application. These searches are
commonly used in litigation, pre-suit analysis, freedom-to-operate defence, and
strategic licensing.

2. When to Order an Invalidity Search
Common scenarios:
• Assessing the strength of asserted patent claims prior to litigation.
• Evaluating invalidity risk during freedom-to-operate (FTO) analysis.

3. • Due diligence in M&A, investment, or licensing deals.
• Re-examination, post-grant review, opposition, or IPR preparation.
3. Scope & Search Strategy
Scope is tailored to client needs. Typical options:
1. Knockout / Quick Invalidity Search (2-5 key references): Focused, fast,
low-cost review to surface immediate, high-value prior art.
2. Comprehensive Invalidity Search: Exhaustive search across patent
literature, non-patent literature (NPL), academic publications, standards,
and product/market evidence.
3. Technology-specific deep-dive: Includes foreign-language searching and
translated results for jurisdictions relevant to the case.

Search strategy highlights:
1. Claim charting: mapping prior-art references to each independent claim.
2. Family-level analysis: identify most relevant family member with earliest
priority date.
3. Combination searches: locate teachings that, when combined, may
render claims obvious.
4. Methodology & Databases
We use a mix of paid and free databases to ensure full coverage:
• Patent databases: USPTO, EPO Espacenet, WIPO Patentscope, national
patent offices.
• Non-patent literature: IEEE, PubMed, arXiv, conference proceedings,
trade journals.
• Product/market evidence: web archives, technical specifications,
datasheets, standard documents.
Search techniques include Boolean formulation, classification-based searching
(CPC/IPC), citation analysis, and semantic/similarity searches. Where helpful,

4. manual expert review and translation are provided to ensure accurate
assessment.
5. Deliverables
Typical deliverables for a Comprehensive Invalidity Search:
Report
A detailed PDF report summarizing search strategy, key
references, claim charts, analysis of novelty and obviousness,
and relevance scoring.
Claim Charts
Annotated claim charts (claim-by-claim mapping) for critical
references.
Prior Art
Dossier
Complete copies and bibliographic details of hit references,
translations where applicable.
Search Log
Complete search strings, databases searched, dates, and
searcher notes.
Executive
Summary
1–2-page high-level summary for counsel and executives.
Appendices
Supporting documentation, date-stamped evidence, and
search history.
6. Confidentiality & Quality Assurance
All searches are performed under strict confidentiality. We can sign NDAs on
request. Quality control includes independent reviewer checks, relevance
scoring, and reproducible search logs.
Our team comprises experienced patent searchers with technical backgrounds,
supported by legal reviewers where needed.
7. Case Study — Example Summary
• Situation: Client faced an asserted US patent covering a mechanical
actuator. Requested an invalidity search to evaluate exposure before
filing IPR.

5. • Approach: Comprehensive patent and NPL search across USPTO,
Espacenet, and industry standards, plus product datasheets.
• Outcome: Located three high-priority references including an earlier
international patent family and a conference paper that, when
combined, provided strong arguments for both novelty and obviousness
challenges. The client used the report to negotiate a favourable
settlement and ultimately avoided costly litigation.
8. How to Order / Contact
To proceed, please provide: patent number(s), jurisdiction(s) of interest, claims
to evaluate, desired search depth, and any known relevant prior art or
references.

Contact: IIP Search
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://iipsearch.com

Prepared by IIP Search — Professional Patent Search Services