When a commitment of funds is to be made to develop a patent, or a design or trade mark portfolio, or even when simply lodging a single application, it is wise for a search to be conducted initially to determine whether your invention, trade mark, or design satisfies the respective requirements for newness. Our brief comments on searching are provided below. However, you should contact us if you require a complete understanding of any aspect of searching.

We have online access to all public records at Australian Intellectual Property Office, and a large number of international computer databases on which we can conduct far broader-ranging searches. Our charges for the majority of our searches are fixed and were calculated according to an estimation of the time involved in conducting the search and online database costs.

Trade Mark Searches

We strongly recommend that a trade mark availability search be conducted prior to lodging an application for registration. We have found that major problems can be caused when another party has independently lodged a trade mark application for the same or a substantially identical trade mark and another trader has begun using the same or a similar trade mark and is committed to printing brochures, labels, and packaging etc. It can prove very expensive to be advised during examination of a trade mark application (some nine months down the track) that not only is there an earlier registration that will prevent the application proceeding, but it is also being infringed by the trader’s use of the trade mark.

Trade mark searches incur costs starting at $495.00* per trade mark searched.

Name Searches

We are also able to conduct extensive searches for patent, design, or trade mark applications lodged by a particular person or company in Australia, and also for patents or trade marks lodged anywhere in the world (some limitations apply for trade marks in other countries).

International Name Searches incur costs of $350**; Australian Name searches incur costs of $200**

**discounts apply to second and subsequent names searched concurrently

Patent Searches

Our search will normally be conducted using the world-wide patents database Derwent World Patents Index, which provides coverage of patents issuing from forty four of the leading industrial countries (as at July 2011). Depending upon the type of search required, it may also cover other specialist patent databases, especially INPADOC and USA patent files.

Keywords defining the subject of interest are combined resulting in a set of records relevant to the subject of the search. These keywords are sometimes combined with IPCs (international patent classifications) in order to reduce the number of results to a workable level (usually 50 to 400 records). We then retrieve Patent specifications for the most relevant results, to enable further review.

Searching costs for a patent search are $1200 plus attorney fees.

Industrial Designs

Our comments for design searches are similar to those for patent searches, although our ability to search on computer databases is somewhat limited due to the nature of designs and the present level of design databases availability. Generally our costs for design searches will be less than an equivalent patent search.

Other types of searches

• Family Search: to locate worldwide equivalents of a patent
• Watching Search: a periodic check (usually monthly) to identify:
  • changes in the status of a particular patent, design or trade mark
  • changes to the family members of a patent
  • new applications in the name of a particular person or company
  • new inventions in a particular field
  • new trade mark applications in a particular class
  • similar trade marks to the one being watched
• Document Delivery:
  • patent specifications
  • patent file histories
  • of journal articles / conference papers