By performing availability searches is possible to evaluate in advance (a) the validity of one or more patents, designs or trademarks that are intended to be filed, and (b) the possible counterfeiting of third parties’ prior rights.
This could be an activity of extremely and decisive importance in order to estimate in advance the value of technical and commercial strategies and also in order to prevent the raising of litigation with the owners of prior rights.
Furthermore, availability services are especially important in case of judicial litigation, among which it is compulsory to prove the lack of novelty and inventive step of the patents of the adversarial part of the proceeding.
It is clear that the best performance of said activities and services could be done only with a perfect pairing between the technical content (the search) and the legal opinion (the opinion about the infringement of third parties’ rights) that must be properly carried out only through the unceasing and integrated collaboration of technical consultant and specialized attorney at law, according to the key operating philosophy of APTA.