DETI Invest NI — Access to Patent and Trademark Databases.

Descriptions

Within Invest NI, the Technical Advisory Unit (TAU) is focused on assisting Northern Ireland companies to solve technical problems and improve their technical capabilities. A key part of this activity is providing advice and guidance on the protection and exploitation of Intellectual Property both within the UK and internationally. This is achieved through a range of measures which include Intellectual Asset audits, plus patent and trademark searching and providing a cost effective service to encourage individuals and small companies to appropriately protect and exploit their full range of Intellectual Assets with a particular concentration on trademarks, patents and licence agreements. The Technical Advisory Unit forms part of the wider Innovation and Technology Solutions (ITS) Division. In order to provide this service quickly and in a comprehensive way Invest NI currently has access to two on line databases which provide comprehensive current information on UK and international patent and trademark registration information respectively This information is accessed and combined with other information from general internet searches and is provided to companies and individual inventors to help Invest NI and the promoters form a properly informed judgement on whether an idea is genuinely new and has a chance of being patentable or trademarkable with any conflict with existing IP registrations. When a search has been completed by Invest NI staff, a report which includes a limited amount of information downloaded from the relevant databases is e-mailed to the client.