Why Freedom to Operate Search is of Great Use for Technology Companies?
So, what is Freedom to Operate or FTO and for what reason would it be advisable for you to worry about it?
FTO can be considered as the liberation to commercialize a product/process without infringing on others patent rights. Commercialization of infringing products may prompt costly claims. Thus, a FTO study is a fundamental task to be done before commercializing a product.
It should be noticed that patent rights are regional. To see whether your product is infringing on the patent privileges of others in a particular nation, a search must be done to reveal all the important patents in that country.
Why conduct Freedom to operate search and what other benefits can you get from it.
Freedom to operate search ought to be ideally carried out at a beginning stages of product development, with the goal that you don't acquire vast development costs in growing possibly infringing products and are not trapped in a legal battle later, on infringement charges.
A Freedom to operate search assists in several manner; some of them are listed below:
- Will limit the danger of getting sued by others, for having infringed upon their patent rights.
- Such a search will too dig out patents, which have lapsed (in many nations its 20 years). There might be numerous helpful technologies which can be utilized for such expired patents.
- You will discover a rundown of the patents which are related to your product and enables you to create strategies, like:
- Buying patents which are related to your product, so that you get freedom to operate rights in that territory
- Obtaining a permit from the patent holder for a particular span of time by working out a payment option. This will provide you the right to operate with no any infringing on else’s patent rights.
- If you do have your very own patent, you can likewise attempt the approach of cross licensing of patents to earn shared benefits.
- Reforming your product in such a way that it does not infringe upon others patent rights.
- Try and nullify the patents in question so that you get freedom to operate in the alarmed territory.