Search Report ¶
A list of citations of all published prior art documents which are relevant to the patent application. The search process, conducted by a patent examiner, seeks to identify patent and non-patent documents constituting the relevant prior art to be taken into account in determining whether the invention is novel and includes an inventive step.
Specification ¶
The part of a patent document that contains the description, drawings and claims
State-Of-The-Art, Prior Art Search ¶
Carrying out a search for a broad area of interest to see if there any areas which are free of patents and/or literature for possible research and patenting. Anything that is published would be classed as prior art.
Statutory Invention Registration (SIR) - US only ¶
In United States patent law, a statutory invention registration (SIR) is a publication of an invention by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The publication is made at the request of the applicant (i.e. inventor(s) or assignee(s)). Publishing an SIR ensures that the invention is in the public domain and cannot be subsequently patented by others. These publication numbers belong to a sequence of H1 to approximately H2225 (note they are prefixed by 'H').
Strasbourg Agreement ¶
The Strasbourg Agreement, 1971, establishes the International Patent Classification (IPC). The IPC provides for a hierarchical system of language independent symbols for the classification of patents and utility models according to the different areas of technology to which they pertain.