Medical Device

Medical device searching resides at the junction of health technology and mechanical/electrical art. It also covers a broad spectrum, from seemingly simple devices, to highly sophisticated equipment. 

 

TPR’s medical device searchers have a healthy cross-section of subject experience, encompassing strong biological, chemical, physiological and medical knowledge, along with expertise in a range of mechanical and electrical art. They will always seek to understand what benefit a device has, how it works, and the most effective approach to searching for its differentiating features, especially for areas of ‘common’ art e.g. catheters, needles, and stents.

 

Medical device searches most often lend themselves to a manual-type search approach – starting with a wide net of patent classifications, and reviewing the documents individually.  TPR searchers review documents and drawing carefully to determine whether they possess critical features of interest to the search. These are typically large-volume searches that require long periods of concentration during the review process, plus an intimate knowledge and adept use of appropriate US, European, Japanese or other classifications as needed.

 

A close familiarity with art in the medical device area means that our searchers have special insight into the patterns of the technology and science and know where to direct their search. Not only are they expert at targeting and reviewing large numbers of documents efficiently within commercial and patent office databases, but they can also incorporate non-patent literature sources effectively via on-location access to specialist libraries in the US, Europe, Japan, China or wherever may be required. 

 

With TPR you can be confident that the results you get are a product of the right mix of technical expertise -- experience and background in the subject area; search strategy skill using classifications and keywords, plus specialist library research; and concentrated intellectual inspection. It’s the difference between getting a stack of results that are in the general area, as opposed to a massaged set of on-target references that have been culled from an initial wide net, and gradually whittled down via analysis to give you the essential references you need.