Our preferred strategy is to go for an indication of patentability at the first patent office of the first filing, typically the Danish Patent Office. It takes time to obtain patents globally. However, when you have a high certainty of a patent being granted in the end, you can afford to wait.

Our first-strike strategy reduces the risk of unpleasant surprises at a later stage, and the granted Danish patent communicates a higher value of the invention to interested parties such as competitors, partners and investors.

We prefer to do a preliminary search ourselves prior to the drafting of a patent application. It gives us confidence in the technology and assures us that pertinent prior art has not been overlooked. A more thorough search is performed by the patent office after the application has been filed. A subsequent application, such as a European or international application, is searched by another patent office (usually the European Patent Office). The provision of searches from two different authorities reduces the risk of unpleasant surprises in the subsequent prosecution of the patent application. Thus, it is more likely that the most relevant prior art is identified at an early stage.

Another advantage of using the Early Certainty strategy is the easy access to the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) that provides fast and inexpensive patents in many countries.