Finding Patents

What is a Patent?

Finding U.S. Patents

Finding International Patents

Finding Chemical Patents

What is a Patent?

A patent is a legal document giving the patent owner certain exclusive rights to his/her invention for a limited time.

Patents are an excellent source of information on new technology, trends in technological development, and specific products or innovations. 

Finding U.S. Patents

The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) Patent Database includes full text of patents from 1790 – present and also provides TIFF images of most of them.

By Patent Number

1. Go to USPTO Database.
2. Select Patent Number Search or Publication Number Search.

By Subject

1. Go to USPTO Database and select Quick Search. Enter keywords in the search box.
2. Find a patent that is close to what you're looking for.
3. Note the U.S. Classification number/Subclass for that patent, e.g. 711/111 .
4. Do a search of that Class/Subclass in USPTO to find more patents on that subject.

OR ...

1. Go to Index to the U.S. Patent Classification System and search for common terms or keywords.
2. Use the Class/Subclass numbers you found to check the Manual of U.S. Patent Classification to see if they are on target.
3. Search by Class/Subclass numbers in USPTO Database.

Finding International Patents

The European Patent Office maintains a free database of worldwide patents (including U.S. patents) called esp@cenet. Images of patents are provided in PDF format, but can only be printed one page at a time.

By Patent Number

1. Go to esp@cenet and select Number Search.
2. Select the Worldwide Patent Database
3. Enter the patent number in the search box in the format given.

By Patent Subject

1. Go to esp@cenet and select Quick Search.
2. Enter your keywords in the Search Terms box.
3. Find a patent that's close to what you're looking for.
4. Note the International Classification number/Subclass for that patent, e.g. H04B1/59.
5. Do a search of that Class/Subclass in the esp@cenet database to find more patents on that subject.

Finding Chemical Patents

Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) indexes chemical patents from approximately 25 countries and patent organizations. UCSD affiliates may search the online CAS database, Scifinder Scholar.

Once you have obtained access to SciFinder Scholar, go to Explore References.  To search by patent number, assignee name or inventor name, select  Patent and enter the informatio you have.  To search by subject, select Research Topic and limit to document type Patent.

Scifinder How To Guides

See these tutorials for more details:

University of Texas Patent Searching Tutorial

Penn State University Patent Search Tutorial

Patent Tutorial at the University of Central Florida