One of the core services offered by Patracode is claim charting, or claim mapping, which is also known widely as Invalidity Search, wherein one can invalidate the other’s claims for benefits-which may vary according to the situations. Patent claims are your first line of defense as they put the world on notice to the subject area and boundaries of your invention.
Claim charting is the art of finding a needle in a hay stack, and using the needle to either defend yourself from an infringement suit or filing an infringement suit against the other. When a competitor crosses those lines, just saying foul, or infringement isn’t going to stop them, you have to prove it.
Patracode’s IP Analysts, take it up as a challenge to find out if there is any possible way, by the book, to prove the invalidation. And one of the prime and most effective way is to go for the claims, and prove it existed before, or at least was being claimed indirectly before.
Patracode has found many scenarios where it has delivered its claim charts as one of its prime results, during primary infringement suits, Infringement Analysis, Freedom to operate (FTO) , Invalidity Analysis or Invalidity Searches and during Litigation Support sourcing.
As depicted above the ‘what’ and ‘when’ a claim chart is done, it is also equally important to know that claim mapping can be done by any party. First Party can be the one trying to find an infringer of his claims, second party can be the one trying to invalidate the accuser’s claims. And third party may be a genuine investor, or business prospect trying to figure out if there is any existing claims that may stop him/her to start a business at a specific location/region.
Claim Chart analysis is a tedious process, where it is not just important to find the exact claims that express the search target, these claims are called Explicit Disclosure. There are those claims that may not directly explain the search target but express the concepts or the implementation in such a way that the search target is hidden within it, these are called Implicit Disclosure. It doesn’t end here , if a thorough investigation is taking place where the plaintiff is sure that an infringement is taking its course or already has , there will be many things that may be taken itto consideration and charted or mapped against the claims, for example , the user manual, the feature descriptions report and the products final report that may talk directly or indirectly about the plaintiffs claims. All such things may be taken in place and used against the accused. For example Apple accused infringement against HTC two Patents and indirectly on every android devices, 2011.
Patracode, follows a procedure where it combines the Claim Chart or Claim Mapping in Invalidity Searches, FTOs (Freedom to Operate), Infringement Analysis, using both the implicit and explicit disclosures. Hence providing thorough suggestions or guidance to the clients depending on their scenarios and the kind of party they are as to what should be their strategic next step or next action.
