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We probably get more walk in people with automobile inventions than anything else, and 99 percent of the time it’s been done before. So just like any other product, what we have to do is a search and we have to make sure that it has not been done before. And again, with any other product, it doesn’t have to be something that has a current patent on it. It may be That it was done 15 years ago or 20 years ago in China. It will still prevent you from getting a patent today.

It won’t stop you from manufacturing the part if there is no patent or if the patent has expired. But it’s something that you have to go to an attorney and you have to clear. We give opinions, what it’s called a clearance search, where we look at the existing patents in the United States and perhaps even abroad and we see whether someone has clearance to manufacture the part.

This is a separate item from what we call a pre-examination search, which is a search that we do before we file a patent application to see if there’s any prior art out there. Might be a patent, might be a magazine article or a website, which is, even though not patented, it would stop you from getting a patent.