Freedom to Operate search

A safer path to market. Developing a new product or industrial process is expensive. With a Freedom to Operate search, you can assess the risk of infringing on someone else's patent rights.

What is a Freedom to Operate (FTO) search?

Developing a new product or industrial process is expensive. With a Freedom to Operate (FTO) search, you can assess the risk of infringing on the patent rights of others. This applies if you plan to manufacture or sell the product in Norway or other countries. FTO searches are particularly useful for avoiding legal complications that could delay or prevent commercial launch.

The Norwegian Industrial Property Office does not perform the actual assessment of infringement, but we provide you with a report of patents and published patent applications that may be relevant for assessing infringement. We recommend that you use an IP advisor to interpret the report.

Why order an FTO search?

An FTO search provides an overview of existing patents and published patent applications. This information gives you a basis for considering how you can:

  • Reduce the risk of infringing on others' patent rights.
  • Ensure a safer launch of your product or technical process.

Who is the service suitable for?

In a world with an increased pace of innovation, securing freedom to operate (FTO) is important for businesses and inventors who want to bring a product to market to minimize the risk of infringing on the patent rights of others.

This service is for you who:

  • Are planning to launch a new product or technical process commercially and have established clear technical specifications that provide a sufficient basis for a search.

We adapt the search to your needs

Before we start the search, we discuss the search strategy with you. You have the opportunity to determine the scope of the FTO search and the number of hours. The report we create is an overview of patent publications grouped by relevance. The format can be a spreadsheet or text report and the information can be customized to your needs. We can highlight relevant patent claims in a claims chart.

How is an FTO search conducted?

  • You order the FTO search
    Send us the necessary documentation, see below.
  • We follow up
    We always contact you in advance of the search to agree on details such as search terms, search strategy and scope. We also agree on limitations when it comes to geography and which patent databases will be used. Based on this, we provide you with a price estimate and a delivery date.
  • Implementation
    After you have accepted the offer, we will carry out the search.
  • Dialogue along the way
    We will contact you during the search process if adjustments to the search are required.
  • Delivery
    You receive a report with relevant patents and published patent applications as a basis for assessing the risk of infringement.
  • Invoicing
    We will send you an invoice for the assignment after you have received the report from us.

What do we need from you?

To get started, we need:

  • A detailed description of the product or process.
  • An overview of which countries you plan to manufacture or sell the product in.

Price and time spent

An FTO search normally takes between 25 and 50 hours for us to complete. This depends on which subject area you want to have investigated and the scope with the number of countries. We invoice an hourly rate of NOK 1300 for the search.