Before ever embarking on a research and development project, it’s vital that you’ve scoured the landscape first. Failure to do so can mean you run the risk of wasting valuable time, effort and resources on technical innovations that have already been established - throwing your eligibility for R&D tax relief into question.

Today, we’re exploring why it pays to search before you research, ensuring you’re aware of any existing intellectual property claims that may impact your R&D projects.

Scouring the landscape

First things first: start by mapping out the existing technical landscape, making note of the ‘loud’ and ‘quiet’ areas based on the amount of development activity taking place within each space. The benefits of doing so are twofold:

1. This will highlight any existing developments that present crossover with your R&D plans
2. This will highlight gaps in the field that currently lack any notable R&D activity

This will enable you to be more efficient and strategic in your allocation of R&D resources - whether that’s through confidently pursuing your original R&D plans, or reassessing the most lucrative avenues to explore.

More often than not, this activity is best placed at the start of your R&D project. For some industries, though, it may be beneficial to perform this technical analysis throughout the project at major milestones. We recommend conducting an intellectual property check early using the UK Government’s patent search tool to avoid you losing time and resource on pursuing pre-patented avenues.

A gap in the field

If your patent landscaping has drawn attention to a gap in the field, great news: you’ve found an opportunity to develop an independent, patentable solution. Whether that gap aligns with your original R&D plans or inspires a new direction, pursuing fresh innovation reinforces your eligibility for tax relief under both the R&D credit scheme and UK Patent Box legislation. Ultimately, this means a more profitable venture for your business.

It’s worth noting that scouring the landscape early on brings many additional benefits, from inspiring new R&D ideas to identifying areas of high activity where it may be critical to file the appropriate intellectual property claims early.

An existing solution

Of course, there’s every possibility that, when scouring the industry landscape, you might stumble upon significant crossover with your R&D plans (or even existing solutions). As a rule of thumb, areas of the field that are already ripe with activity are unlikely to provide much scope for patents and intellectual property claims.

Existing intellectual property claims are likely to harm your R&D tax relief eligibility by calling into question your approach to innovation. After all, you’re unlikely to have overcome scientific uncertainty if someone else has previously established the science.

Not all existing patents will present hurdles for your R&D progress, so it’s vital you’re able to analyse and understand how these relate to your business’s ability to commercialise any of your research and development output.

Need a hand understanding where to start? Get in touch with Lumo. We can’t wait to help you on your way to a successful R&D tax claim.