New to Patent Searching? See this important information about searching for patents:
How to Conduct a Preliminary U.S. Patent Search: A Step by Step Strategy - Web Based Tutorial (38 minutes)
- The Multi-Step strategy - A handout that outlines a suggested procedure for patent searching
Patents may be searched using the following resources:
Patent Public Search
The Patent Public Search tool is a new web-based patent search application that replaced internal legacy search tools PubEast and PubWest and external legacy search tools PatFT and AppFT. Patent Public Search has two user selectable modern interfaces that provide enhanced access to prior art. The new, powerful, and flexible capabilities of the application improves the overall patent searching process.
Global Dossier
Global Dossier is a set of business services aimed at modernizing the global patent system and delivering benefits to all stakeholders through a single portal/user interface. Through this secure service, users have access to the file histories of related applications from participating IP Offices, which currently include the IP5 Offices.
By using this service, users can see the patent family for a specific application, containing all related applications filed at participating IP Offices, along with the dossier, classification, and citation data for these applications. This service also provides Office Action Indicators to help users identify applications that contain office actions, a Collections View for saving documents and applications for review later on in the session, and the ability to download the documents in an application.
Public Search Facility
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Public Search Facility located in Alexandria, VA provides the public access to patent and trademark information in a variety of formats including on-line, microfilm, and print. Trained staff are available to assist public users.
Patent and Trademark Resource Centers (PTRCs)
Your nearest Patent and Trademark Resource Center (PTRC) maintains local search resources and may offer training in patent search techniques.
Patent Official Gazette
The Electronic Official Gazette allows users to browse through the issued patents for the current week. The Official Gazette can be browsed by classification or type of patent, for example, utility, design, and plant.
Common Citation Document (CCD)
The Common Citation Document (CCD) application aims to provide single point access to up-to-date citation data relating to the patent applications of the IP5 Offices. It consolidates the prior art cited by all participating offices for the family members of a patent application, thus enabling the search results for the same invention produced by several offices to be visualized on a single page. The creation of the CCD application is part of an ongoing process of technical harmonization at international level aimed at establishing an appropriate infrastructure to facilitate greater integration of the global patent system.
Search International Patent Offices
To see if your idea has been patented abroad, you'll want to refer to searchable databases made available from other International Intellectual Property offices.
Free online access to patent collections is provided by many countries. Some available databases include:
- European Patent Office (EPO) provides esp@cenet a network of Europe's patent databases- This site also provides access to machine translation of European patents for some languages.
- Japan Patent Office (JPO) - This site also provides access to machine translations of Japanese patents.
- World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) provides PATENTSCOPE ® Search Service, which features a full-text search of published international patent applications and machine translations for some documents as well as a list of international patent databases.
- Korean Intellectual Property Rights Information Service (KIPRIS)
- China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) - This site also provides access to machine translation of Chinese patents.
- Other International Intellectual Property Offices that provide searchable patent databases include: Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Israel, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Taiwan.
Stopfakes.Gov provides informative Toolkits that give an overview of the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) environment in various countries around the world.
For additional search resources, contact your local Patent and Trademark Resource Center, visit the USPTO Public Search Facility or the USPTO Main STIC Library. The staff in the Main STIC Library are experts on foreign patents and able to help the public as needed.
Search Published Sequences
The Publication Site for Issued and Published Sequences (PSIPS) website provides Sequence Listings, tables, and other mega items for granted US patents or published US patent applications.
All sequences (SEQ ID NOs.) and tables for listed patents or publications are available for viewing, without downloading, by accessing the proper document detail page and then submitting a SEQ ID NO or a mega table ID number.
Patent Assignment Search
Visit the Patent Assignment Search website to search for patent assignments and changes in ownership.
Patent Examination Data System (PEDS)
The Patent Examination Data System (PEDS) in the Amazon Cloud provides public users the ability to search, view and download bibliographic data for all publicly available Patent applications in a secure manner. The solution allows public users to search and download bibliographic data in bulk as well as manage the volume of data that can be downloaded at any given period of time by a particular user.