つばめリサーチ List of Products and Services

The materials for invalidation are not limited to patents. If necessary, the scope of the investigation will be expanded to include domestic and international literature, patents, and articles. The prior art search conducted by patent office examiners mainly uses F-terms, FI, and IPC as search keys and is carried out by external research organizations. It is a very effective and efficient search and investigation, but it is quite narrowed down. Therefore, there are instances of omissions. Even for patents that have been registered, there is a significant probability of finding valid invalidation (public knowledge) materials.

• Ceramics
• Rare metals
• Other Auto Parts

A prior art search is an important investigation conducted before filing a patent application or requesting examination, aimed at understanding what prior patents exist in the relevant technical field to assess the novelty and inventive step of an invention. It is necessary to conduct a thorough search for the following reasons: filing a patent application incurs significant costs [approximately 300,000 yen if using a patent office]. Additionally, requesting examination costs about 200,000 yen. If an application is filed without knowing that the same invention already exists, these costs will be wasted. The amendment to the Patent Law in 2002 established a new provision in Article 36, Paragraph 4, introducing a system for disclosing prior art documents. In other words, if a patent applicant is aware of inventions related to the invention in the application, they must include those prior art documents in the patent specification.

• Piezoelectric Devices
• Ceramics
• Patent/Copyright related services

Arrangement agency for various document and paper copying We will investigate domestic and international document copying service providers (such as the National Diet Library, J-STAGE, ScienceDirect, IEEE, Springer, etc.), and provide estimates prioritizing either price or delivery time, and handle the arrangement of document copying.

• Other services

We conduct literature surveys on science and technology-related topics both domestically and internationally.

• Other services

Recently, the search functions and accuracy of free patent databases (DB) have improved. An experienced professional with over 30 years in patent searching will conduct domestic and international patent searches at a low cost using free patent DBs. The search results will be provided in Excel format (with links to patent publications). 1) Used Patent DBs Japanese Patent DB: J-PlatPat (primarily used), Google Patents, PATENTSCOPE International Patent DB: Google Patents (primarily used), The Lens, Espacenet, PATENTSCOPE, etc. 2) Search agency fees Japanese patents: 10,000 yen per theme International patents: 15,000 yen per theme [the fee remains the same even if the number of target countries increases]

• Ceramics

We conduct essential prior art searches and investigations necessary for patent opposition and invalidation requests before filing a patent application.

• Patents

Patent publications are provided at a cost of 100 yen per item [PDF file delivery] for Japan and major countries (US, EP, WO, DE, CA, etc.), regardless of the number of pages.

• Patents
• Ceramics
• Analytical Equipment and Devices

Recently, the search functions and accuracy of free literature databases (DB) have improved. An experienced professional with over 30 years in searching scientific and technical literature will conduct searches for domestic and international scientific and technical literature using free literature DBs at a low cost. The search results will be provided in PDF format (with links to detailed information). 1) Literature DBs used: Japanese DB: J-GLOBAL Overseas DB: Google Scholar If the language of the literature is not a concern, it is generally recommended to use a combined search of the two DBs mentioned above. 2) Search agency fees: J-GLOBAL search: 6,000 yen per theme Google Scholar search: 9,000 yen per theme Combined search of the two DBs: 12,000 yen per theme

• Analytical Equipment and Devices