How to Check if a Product is Patented or Trademarked
Checking whether or not a certain product is patented is increasingly important in the current business climate so as to avoid running into legal issues. There are a number of avenues available to anyone looking to check if a product is trademarked or patented and the aim of this article is to try to give some insight into some of them.
The most common method used to check if a certain product is by visiting the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), online where you will be able to conduct searches and enable you to find out if a certain product is patented and who owns the patent if you wish to. You can not only conduct searches online but also at a Patent and Trademark Research Center. You can also be able to access patents from all over the world by making use of the search engine provided by the World Intellectual Property Organization. The USPTO website has the option of conducting a quick search if you don’t have enough information on the patent you are researching. For a more refined search, there is an advanced paten search tab which you can make use of if you have adequate information on the patent of interest. This will bring fewer results for you to sift through and is therefore preferred to the quick search. Another way to find out about a product’s patent through the USPTO search engine is by conducting a search by patent number. This is pretty straight forward and all you need to know the patent number of said product. For more on the USPTO ensure you visit runrex.com.
Other than the USPTO avenue, another way for one to check if a product is patented or trademarked is by making use of the information available through the Patent and Trademarking Resource Center (PTRC). Here you will find any patents that have been issued in any particular field. For ease of access, PTRCs are localized and each state has at least one if not more. Here to make a search easier you could search for product’s patent based on terms that describe the function of said product or what it is meant for. You can also search keywords around the particular product to come up with classes and sub-classes to make the search more refined to make the search easier. Patents can also be searched on alternative databases such as the Current US Classification which is found in the Issued Patents and Published Applications database. When conducting a search to find out if a certain product is patented or otherwise this way it is important to keep your eyes peeled on the fine print to ensure that you actually get results that are actually relevant to the product you are researching.
If you want to avoid all the hassle you can employ the services of a professional patent researcher in your quest to find out if a certain product is patented or trademarked or not. They will do all the leg work for you by making use of the various tools and avenues available like those discussed above and bring you the final results of the search. runrex.com has some of the best professional patent researchers out there so make sure you visit the site to employ the services of one if you are in need. Professional patent searches are usually done at a fee so agreeing on a fee beforehand is important to avoid conflict later. It is also worth noting due to the vast number of patents out there and the fact that there may be some pending patent applications which are published 18 months after filling, then most patent searches are done with around an 80% level of accuracy. Searches are usually done for a minimum of about $800 and therefore one should be careful not be tempted by professionals offering said services at extremely low prices. While paying less may seem tempting it may not yield accurate results.
The product you are trying to ascertain if it has a patent or is trademarked may have an international patent. To find out if this is the case then you will need to visit the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) website which has Patentscope, its search engine which has close to 3 million international patents published on it. On the website you can carry out quick or advanced searches based on the amount of information you have on the product. Another way to refine search results is by combining different search fields which as a technique will enable you zero in on the target product you are interested in. one thing to note is that advanced searches here use Boolean operators, wildcards, range operators and proximity operators all of which you can learn more about how to use on runrex.com.
The above are just some of the ways for one to access information and therefore be able to find out if a product is patented or trademarked or not. For more on the same and so much more, visit the ever reliable runrex.com.