Domain Expertise

Information & Communication Technology (ICT)

Semiconductor

Synoptic IP has executed more than 100 semiconductor projects — through-silicon vias (TSV), memories, FPGAs, analog and digital ASICs, A/D converters, testing methods, and fabrication and packaging processes. We have run complex landscape analyses on carbon nanotubes, quantum dots, eWLB packaging, redistributed chip packaging (RCP) and power modulators, with extensive freedom-to-operate experience across the space.

Electronics & Electrical

Electronics and electrical engineering is our core strength. The team has located highly relevant prior art for genuinely difficult inventions — turbo decoders, speech decoding devices and methods, error-correcting code (ECC) memory, and methods for testing the response-signal timing of a memory under test, among many others.

Communication

A strong track record in telecommunications: patentability and invalidity searches across RF communication technology, ad-hoc network inventions and ZigBee, plus state-of-the-art searches on subjects such as power distribution grids used to transmit messages. Our communication engineers come from strong academic backgrounds and follow standards work closely.

AI / ML

Our AI and machine-learning group works across neural-network architectures, training and inference pipelines, computer vision, NLP, recommendation systems and generative models. We handle patentability, invalidity and freedom-to-operate work here, and are comfortable with the claim-construction issues specific to algorithmic subject matter — including eligibility questions under §101 and their counterparts at the EPO and the Indian Patent Office.

Computer & IT

Our computing team has prepared more than 50 claim charts covering database management, data recovery, dynamic virtual-server resources, data de-duplication, warehousing, virtualisation, integration, federation and cloud-based archiving — plus many patentability and invalidity projects on cloud operating systems, virtual devices and virtual bus tunnels, web-based asset management, and content query systems.

Medical Devices

Diagnostic & Imaging

We cover in-vitro diagnostics, point-of-care testing and assay platforms, alongside imaging across ultrasound, MRI, CT, X-ray and optical modalities — including image reconstruction and the AI-assisted analysis increasingly bundled with these systems. Typical engagements are patentability and invalidity searches, landscape studies ahead of product planning, and freedom-to-operate work before market entry.

Therapeutic & Surgical

Surgical instruments and robotics, catheters and guidewires, stents and implants, orthopaedic devices, energy-based treatment systems and drug-device combinations. We regularly handle freedom-to-operate and clearance work for device makers preparing to launch, and prepare evidence-of-use claim charts where infringement is suspected.

Connected & Digital

Connected health spans wearables and remote patient monitoring, implantable device telemetry, hospital connectivity and interoperability standards, and software as a medical device (SaMD). These inventions usually sit across device hardware, wireless communication and cloud software at once, so we build the search team accordingly and watch the regulatory and standards landscape shaping the claims.

Life Sciences, Pharmaceuticals & Chemistry

Life Science

Prior art searches, landscape analyses and clearance searches across the life sciences — recombinant DNA technology, immunology, plant tissue culture, bioprocesses, nanobiotechnology, bioinformatics, microbiology and genomics. Biological sequence searching is handled in-house rather than outsourced.

Pharmaceuticals

Small molecules, formulations, polymorphs, salts, dosage forms, drug-delivery systems and biopharmaceuticals. We run validity and invalidity searches around Orange Book listings, prepare state-of-the-art reviews ahead of filing, and support clearance work for new chemical entities and follow-on products.

Chemistry

Organic and inorganic synthesis, catalysts, polymers, specialty chemicals and agrochemicals, coatings and advanced materials. We search by structure as well as by text — running Markush and full-structure queries across the major chemical databases — and routinely support patentability, invalidity and freedom-to-operate projects.

Mechanical

Automobile

Patentability and invalidity searches across access platforms, deformation sensors, rolling equipment, travel gears, drilling sensors, wellbore fluids, electrical switches, vortex mixers, thermal bridges, wheelchair restraints, fuel filters, vehicle actuators, brake discs and drill tubes. On the automotive side, numerous freedom-to-operate searches covering clutch and gear actuation, gearshift, seating, climate control, headrests, armrests and transmission systems. The team also drafts provisional and non-provisional applications and office-action responses.

Robotics

Our research associates have solid grounding in robotics and keep pace with developments in the field. Completed project work here is limited in number and largely confidential, but we have delivered a range of advisory engagements for clients in the US and Europe.

Mechatronics

Mechatronics sits where our mechanical, electronics and software teams overlap, and we staff these projects across all three — motion control, actuators and drives, sensor fusion, embedded control systems, industrial automation and machine safety. Searches here often need claims read against both hardware structure and control logic at once, which is exactly where a mixed team pays off.