§Patent Search & Research
A freedom to operate search, organized the way counsel reads it
Our Product Clearance Search finds in-force patents and pending applications relevant to your product's features, organized by feature and jurisdiction, with legal status from public records. Your attorney decides what it means.
- Typical turnaround
- 2–3 weeks
- Best for
- Product teams and their counsel before a launch, a new market, or a design freeze
- You receive
- Results by feature and jurisdiction, legal status from public records, claim-element mapping, and the audit trail
- Delivered to
- You, or your patent attorney
§ 01Deliverables
What you receive
A search your attorney can audit, organized around the product rather than the patent databases.
Feature-by-feature results
Your product broken into features, and for each feature the in-force patents and pending published applications whose claims we found relevant, with the claim language quoted.
Jurisdiction view
The same results organized by country or region, because a patent matters only where it is in force, and families often differ from one country to the next.
Legal status from public records
Status, calculated expiry, and family members from public registers, with the date we checked each one. Your attorney confirms anything they rely on.
Claim-element mapping
For the closest patents, a technical table setting each claim element beside the feature description you gave us. Technical facts only.
Spreadsheet and audit trail
Every document with links, plus the databases, CPC classes, query strings, date cut-offs, AI tools used, and analyst notes.
§ 02Overview
When teams use it
Before launch
Changing a design before tooling is cheap. Changing it after launch is not. Search while the drawings can still move.
Entering a new market
Each country brings its own set of in-force patents. Search the jurisdictions where you will actually make or sell.
After a design change
A new feature can bring new patents into view. Re-run the search for the feature that changed, not the whole product.
When investors ask
Diligence teams ask what patents sit around a product. Give your counsel the search they need to answer. See support for investors and lenders.
§ 03Process
How it works
- 01
Scope features and markets
A free 20–30-minute call to define the features in scope, the jurisdictions, and the date cut-offs. A fixed-fee written quote follows within one business day.
- 02
Describe the product
Under NDA, you or your engineers describe each feature in technical terms. Drawings, specifications, or a demo help. We confirm the feature list with you or your counsel.
- 03
Search and filter
AI-assisted recall across patents and published applications, then filtering by jurisdiction and legal status. Expired and lapsed documents are listed separately, because counsel often wants to see them too.
- 04
Read the claims and map
Analysts read the claims of every candidate, since the claims define what a patent covers, and map the closest ones feature by feature. A second analyst reviews the report.
- 05
Deliver to counsel
Results, spreadsheet, and audit trail in 2–3 weeks, delivered to you or directly to your attorney.
§ 04Context
What a clearance search is for
A freedom-to-operate (FTO) opinion is a legal opinion that only a patent attorney can give. Our Product Clearance Search supplies the search your attorney's opinion relies on. Most people call that work a freedom to operate search, and its quality sets a ceiling on the opinion built from it.
Patentability looks backward and asks what came before an invention. Clearance looks sideways: whose in-force claims run along the path your product takes, in the countries where you sell, today. Clearance is route-finding. You want to see every station before you lay the track, because moving a line after the concrete sets is expensive.
Three details separate a useful clearance search from a list of patents. It reads claims, not abstracts, because claims define scope. It tracks legal status country by country, because a family that has lapsed in one country can still be in force in another. And it is organized by feature, so your engineers and your attorney talk about the same thing.
Dates need care too. A US utility patent's term generally ends 20 years from its US filing date, or from the earliest application it claims under certain continuity provisions. Term adjustments and unpaid maintenance fees can move the real date, so we report status from public records along with the date we checked.
§ 05 — Boundaries
What this is not
- Not a freedom-to-operate opinion. That is a legal opinion only a patent attorney can give.
- Not a conclusion about whether your product falls within any claim, or about launch risk. Those judgments belong to counsel.
- Not a validity analysis of the patents we find. If one matters, a Validity & Invalidity Search can follow.
- Not ongoing monitoring. New patents issue every week; Hoard Watch can track the families that matter after delivery.
Metadragons LLC is not a law firm. We supply the search; your attorney supplies the opinion.
§ 06Questions
Questions buyers ask
Something else on your mind? Call (505) 357-5188 or write to info@metadragons.com.
What do you need from us?
A feature list in technical terms, drawings or specifications, the countries where you will make or sell the product, and your launch timing. If your counsel has already flagged patents, send those too. We sign an NDA before any technical disclosure.
How long does it take?
Typically 2–3 weeks. More features and more jurisdictions take longer, which the quote will reflect. Rush timing is available when scope allows and is quoted separately.
Can you just tell us whether we are clear to launch?
No. That is a legal opinion, and only a patent attorney can give it. If you don't have one, we can share a list of independent practitioners to contact. We receive no referral fees.
Why not search Google Patents ourselves?
Early on, you should. A free search is a good way to learn the vocabulary of your field. The gaps are legal status across jurisdictions, claim-level reading, and a record of what was searched. An attorney's opinion is only as good as the search beneath it, and an unrecorded search is hard to check.
Is our product information kept confidential?
Yes. We sign an NDA before you describe any unreleased feature, keep files in US-based systems encrypted in transit and at rest, and never use client materials to train AI models. On request, we delete your files within 30 days of project close.
What happens after delivery?
Your attorney reviews the results and decides what needs a closer look: a design discussion with your engineers, a validity search on a specific patent, or monitoring. We can supply research for any of those; the advice stays with counsel.
Keep reading
Where to go next
§Next step
Know what sits along your product's path
Tell us the product and the markets. After a free scoping call, you'll have a fixed-fee written quote within one business day.