3 important IP tools that are available to everyone, not just IP lawyers
IP Australia has some world-leading search and monitoring tools that let you quickly access your Australian trademark and patent portfolio, monitor the status of your IP and conduct clearance searches. The simplicity and ease of use of IP Australia’s search and monitoring tools, means that the ability to monitor your Australian IP and conduct preliminary searches is available to everyone, not just IP lawyers.
A mobile app that monitors your Australian patents & trademarks
The IP Folio app lets you access information about your trademark and patent applications and registrations in Australia straight onto your mobile device. You can receive push notifications of key status changes for your entire trade mark and patent portfolio, directly to your mobile device.
IP Folio will let you know when your trade mark or patent has been accepted or requires renewal.
You can download IP Folio from the App Store and Google Play. IP Folio is compatible with:
iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices running iOS 10.3 or later
Android devices running Android 5.0 - Lollipop onwards.
Trademark image search
IP Australia’s trademark searching tool lets you upload an image and will return results based on the similarity of that image.
By using TrademarkVision's image recognition technology, you can easily search designs and logos without the need for complex searches using pre-determined written design descriptions.
To perfect your results, you can add any other criteria to your image search including word marks, classes and status variables. You can even crop the image so that the search is limited to the most relevant parts of the image.
Would you like a copy of the IP Australia trademark search reference card?
Understanding the basic IP Australia search rules, will let you work directly with your marketing team to vet your trademarks before contacting your IP lawyer to undertake a full clearance search.
Search trends with IP NOVA
IP NOVA is visual, immersive search engine that lets you search across all IP databases in a single search function. It is possible to explore “big picture” IP data on the IP Register and search by criteria such as location,applicant, and technology classes. For example, you could run a competitor search to see what patents and trade marks have been filed, or search for “artificial intelligence” and see all trademarks, patents and designs that cover “artificial intelligence”.
IP NOVA can be especially useful to:
Search new inventions and development ideas;
Identify key trends in technology development;
Find collaborators in specific technology fields;
Gather information on the future direction of competitors,
Identify potential technology partnerships and licensing opportunities; and
Obtain rich IP datasets to perform further research and analysis.
Coming soon: TM-Link global database
In partnership with Swinburne University of Technology and the University of Melbourne, IP Australia has developed a single, internationally-linked trademark database called TM-link.
TM-link will be a world-first platform that links trademark applications across countries and will let you search for trademarks across multiple jurisdictions. While global trademark databanks already exist, IP Australia's new TM-Link will make it easier for businesses to conduct global searches for trade marks via company names, text, and images. It opens up opportunities for global research in brand behavior, trends, and patterns, and will help businesses make more effective choices about expanding into global markets.
Currently, TM-link includes trade mark data from Australia, Canada, the European Union, New Zealand, and the United States. In the future, it will expand to incorporate trade mark data from other major economies around the world including the United Kingdom, Germany, France, China, Japan, and South Korea.
