How long can you live without your smartphone? It wouldn’t be surprising if your answer is – “Not for a long time.” According to a study, an average American adult spends around 3 hours on their smartphones every day. Now, this is quite justifiable as the apps available cater to our every need – be it networking, staying updated with trends (and friends), planning schedules, managing time, or becoming the best version of ourselves (meditation apps, exercise apps, reading apps, etc). The list is countless. Thus, it is the least bit surprised that there are apps available related to patents and intellectual property, which cater to a varied audience ranging from newbies to professionals.
Whilst some apps cater to newbies to Intellectual Property and get them a basic understanding of the fundamentals of patents, at the same time, there are other apps that serve fully-fledged professionals ranging from analysts to attorneys, and individual inventors, enabling them to conduct patent searches from their sleek smartphones.
There are dozens of IP law-related apps in the domain, and this being an exhaustive list, we picked the top 5 apps, which, in our opinion, are a must-have in your devices. These apps made the cut after taking into account the following factors: the functionality, detail, ease-of-using, and ratings of these apps. Without further ado, let’s scroll down the list. Shall we?
Learn IP Law
Targeted towards beginners, ‘Learn IP Law’ familiarizes any newbie with the basic nuances of IP law. Developed by Professor Ned Snow of the University of South Carolina, the app was originally intended to be a study aid for the casebook authored by him, entitled – Intellectual Property: A Survey of the Law.
The app is designed to help users easily understand the fundamental principles of Intellectual Property law in the United States. It explains the rules and laws that govern trademarks, copyrights, patents and trade secrets, in a clear manner. Further, there are practice questions at the end of the lesson (along with answers) that would help you get a better grasp of the concept in practice.
The only drawback: The app needs an active internet connection to access any content in the app. But that’s the least of the worries of a civilization that is connected to the web for almost the entire day. Further, it’s ad-free, so no random pop-ups appear while you’re trying to get a grasp on the basics of US IP laws.
You can download the app here – Learn IP Law
Related Read: Basics of Intellectual property – Everything you need to know.
Patent Your Idea
Targeted towards inventors and those already having a grasp of IP basics, the ‘Patent your idea’ app acts as a step-by-step guide that would familiarize you with the patenting process, the types of applications, the costs involved and a lot more.
Described as a mini-course with 18 short lessons, this app is great for anyone who is looking to patent their idea the DIY way. Along with the course material, the app also provides extra tools like reminders and notes which would aid your learning process, and ensure you complete the course successfully.
You can download the app here – Patent Your Idea
Patent Search
Anyone familiar with the basics of patenting would understand the value and need for conducting a thorough patent search. Keeping this in mind, this app is designed perfectly for individual inventors, engineers or researchers, who are in the process of writing a patent and wish to ascertain whether or not any patent exists similar to the one they wish to develop.
This app could help save time and money at the initial stage of patent development as you could conduct a basic search by yourself — to determine if an identical or confusingly similar patent has already been granted for the same product or process which you intend to develop — without having to hire an attorney or professional to conduct the search on your behalf.
Though it is always recommended that you hire an expert for conducting patentability searches, but for the DIY enthusiasts, this app is a great option. It does not require any keywords, fields or Boolean operations to conduct the search and is user-friendly. It is also fast, powerful and very simple to use.
One of the best advantages of this app is — you could search for prior art on multiple databases, which include the United States Patent Office (USPTO), the European Patent Office (EPO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and it even searches Google Patents.
Further, the app does not require any additional signing procedures or passwords. Not just that, it also provides news and updates from USPTO, WIPO, and EPO.
All these features in a single app, for free – Impressive! Get the app here.
Relecura Patent Analytics
‘Relecura’ is another good app for conducting patent searches. It is an advanced app that helps in analyzing a set of patents together by creating graphs. It requires a valid email address for sign-up, which is required as it offers the ability to save the work done through this app on the smartphone, and access it using a laptop or desktop later.
This app — similar to the previous one — provides you access to patents worldwide on your smartphone. Additionally, it helps you conduct advanced patent searches using complex query strings or fields on your smartphone. It offers all the benefits that you could get from any quality paid database for free. The best part: It allows you to export as many as 100 documents of patents sets through email.
You can download the app here – Relecura Patent Analytics
U.S. Trademark Search Tool
All the apps mentioned above could assist you from ideation to patent filing. Now, once the patent application is ready to file or has been filed, it is time to concentrate on creating/building a brand; and the first step toward it is to choose a trademark.
Choosing a trademark is not a very complex matter, but it is very important that the trademark is available for registration. The question here is — How to figure whether or not a trademark is taken?
A quick availability search for the trademarks on the USPTO site could do the job. This app is specially designed for this purpose and is user-friendly. This app would save you the initial fees of a trademark attorney. Moreover, it also provides an option to conduct the search by the name of the owner which can help you identify the marks registered by your business competitors.
You can download the app here – US Trademark Search Tool
Well, this gets us to the end of the list here. While there are numerous other apps available that are country-specific or pertinent to a particular type of IP law, these five apps are an absolute must-have for anyone who is trying to secure a patent and build their brand in the US.
Did I mention they’re absolutely free? Why not take advantage of the $0 pricing and download these apps today? Do let us know in the comment section how you liked them. Also, if there are any other apps that you feel should have been on the list, do let us know. We’ll be happy to add them to this list!
