Invalidation Search – Google Timeline View

During Invalidation sometime it becomes very difficult to hunt for non-patent references on Google. As Google provide results based on the page rank.

A very good technique to avoid this problem is by using Timeline View from Google Experimental Lab.

You need to go to Experimental Lab of Google and join the Timeline view experiment. Thereafter, all the search that you will conduct on Google will be performed under this experiment.

Advantages:

Good tool in Patentability and Invalidations
Good tool for conducting market analysis for a patent
Good tool for identifying the growth in a particular technology
Good tool for learning about history of a particular invention/product
Good tool for identifying the lauch of a particular product
A timeline chart showing the growth or drop in number of results

Please note that the results shown under a particular year in the chart doesn’t implies that they were published in that particular year. For example, the result talking about a technology in 1995 doesn’t implies that reference was published in 1995. But it provides enough hints to modify the future search to reach the exact reference for that particular year.

US and Europe Invalidation Search

US is a first-to-invent country (at the moment) whereas Europe and most other jurisdictions have first-to-file rules.

That means that if a patent application was filed in the US and in Europe on July 1, 2004 and you found invalidating art with a publication date of June 1, 2004, that art would likely invalidate the European patent (I have not studied European law, but this is my understanding), but the US applicant would be able to avoid the art by declaring under oath that he/she/they had invented the claimed invention prior to June 1, 2004. This process is called “swearing behind” prior art.

It is fairly easy to swear back up to 6 months from a filing date to avoid prior art. More than that will require solid documentation. Beyond showing a date the invention was first conceived or reduced to practice, you need to show that you continued developing the invention (due diligence) up until the date the patent application was filed. As you can imagine, the longer you swear back, the harder it is to document first invention and continuous development.

The link below from the US Manual of Patent Examining Procedure explains swearing behind a reference.
USPTO

In Europe, it is possilbe to file an opposition against a granted patent (up to 9 months after the date of the publication of the grant). Opposition can be made on the grounds of non patentability (e.g. lack of novelty, lack of inventive activity), and/or absence of sufficient disclosure of the invention, and/or extension of the subject matter of the patent beyond the application as filed.

This is probably the “most efficient” way (time / money / substance – wise) to fight against a patent in Europe and obtain amendments or revocation of the contested patent.