Freedom to Operate (FTO) Analysis
What is a Freedom To Operate Search?
One among many other Prior Art Searches such as Novelty search and Invalidity search is the Freedom to Operate (FTO) search. Often termed as an FTO or clearance search or Right-to-Market (RTM) search or Right-To-Use (RTU) search, freedom to operate search is an investigation of (competitor’s active) patents that can be potentially infringed when (your) product is launched in the market. It covers patents that have been issued or pending patent applications. An FTO search requires paying special attention to claims for all relevant patents that come up during a search. Claims are generally broadly written in order to cover broader scopes of the invention. Thus an FTO search requires extensive and meticulous analysis in order to uncover all relevant patents and their claims that can be infringed by the product to be launched in geographies of interest.
Usually, the Freedom to Operate (FTO) search or a clearance search is performed to identify the companies or the organizations and their respective patents which can obstruct the commercialization of the patent in question in the geography of interest. The best results from the freedom to operate search will be granted patent overlapping with the technology of interest.
Final Reporting
Reading through a large number of patents and including all relevant results requires professional searching and the use of commercial paid databases such as Questel Orbit and Derwent Innovation.
FTO reports delivered by SciSigma – Technology, IP & Market Research focus especially on claims of a patent and search can be restricted to the geography of interest. In many cases, a global FTO can also be conducted. The results are arranged in a well-documented format, including a detailed summary of results which helps our clients in quickly viewing relevant results.
Legal Status:- The legal status of the respective results is also provided so that one can clearly notice whether the patent is in force, published, pending or already expired.
