patent, designI want to market a type of product that has existed for 100 years and has many, many patents associated with it, most of which are in the public domain. What is the best strategy for approaching product design without infringing on other people’s patents? Is it safe to base my design on patents that are over 20 years old? Most of the hits on google are focused on the steps to patenting a design oneself – I have no desire to do this, especially as a startup, and have not found much info on replicating existing designs.
The best strategy is to know the subject area exceptionally well, create your design and then use an IP lawyer to carry out an FTO (freedom to operate) check.
In the UK, this should not cost more than £500.
In general, if a patent is more than 21 years old, you stand a good chance of expiry.
However, there can be affiliated patents which may go unnoticed. Some homework that can be done on patents is to look up the USPTO and and EPO. Check out the fees and whether they are up to date. The patent life can be shortened if the fees haven’t been paid and the patent lapses.
Additionally, not every “patent” you see e.g. On Google, is a patent. A proportion will be patent applications that may not have been granted or did not make it past the PCT stage. Once you have all this information, the optimum solution is to pass this to an IP lawyer. The FTO check is different to a patentability search. This sort of check is very difficult to do if you’re not in the field.
Also, just because the patent/application isn’t in the public domain, it doesn’t mean that an application isn’t in the process as this takes up to 12 months before release.
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