Why should someone include Lapsed Patent in FTO Report ?

• Lapsed patents can get alive at any time e.g. in the USA, as per the Patent Law Treaties Implementation Act of 2012, there is no time limit after which a patent can be revived (Note: Patent rights are territorial rights thus, this might be varying territory to territory).
• Patent term extension. While we only restrict 20 years while performing an FTO search, term extensions for some patents might lead to missing some of the relevant patents from the analysis (Note: Countries like, the USA have provision for Patent Term Extension as well as Patent Term Adjustment).
• Expired patents give confidence that the technology is free to use. Also, it gives the R&D team the opportunity to improvise the product/technology. This is crucial when the product/technology is at the nascent stages of development.