Patents, Trademarks, and Copyright

Databases

From the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office:

• Patent Public Search -  Lets you search records for both U.S. patents and U.S. patent applications.  Not a place to find patents from other countries.  Offers "Basic Search" and "Advanced Search."  (Most of us prefer to use Google Patents and Espacenet.com instead of Patent Public Search.)
• Classification Resources - Searching by classification is what experts recommend for subject searching.  You will find details on both the old and new classification systems (for searching in Patent Public Search and other patent-search databases).   
• Patent Center - is where you file your non-provisional (or "regular) U.S. patent application.  Also, you can look at application materials from other patents.  These include the correspondence between the patent examiner and the inventor (or inventor's attorney).

More on the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) --- the classification system currently used in the U.S. and in the European Patent Office for advanced subject searching:

• Cooperative Patent Classification hierarchy and description - a guide to the CPC from the European Patent Office.
• CPC scheme and CPC definitions - information to help with searching the patent literature. 

Other important websites for accessing patents and patent information:

These include U.S. patents and applications, plus patents and applications from around the world:

• Google Patents - Google for patent searching, with well-developed features and with international content.  Good keyword searching and good linking to classification information.
• European Patent Office - Espacenet is one of the most popular patent databases; it has many helpful features, includes patents from many countries, and shows patent families.
• WIPO - World Intellectual Property Organization - With a special strength in offering the patents of smaller countries whose patents might otherwise be hard to find.  Offering a Directory of Intellectual Property Offices and the PATENTSCOPE database.
• The Lens - Free & Open Patent & Scholarly Search - offering a new sort of search interface, with an emphasis on newer materials.  For coverage, see About Lens.

U.S. Plant Patents in Color:

• Plant Patents Image Database - Color images for U.S. Plant Patents.
• To see color images for the newest plant patents, if they are not yet in the "Plant Patents Image Database," use the Patent Center.
  • Change the default "application no." to "Patent #",
  • Enter the patent number -- in this format, pp23456.
  • "Supplemental Content" is near the bottom of the menu at left of the bibliographic record, with "Design Drawings," if available.

Including historic reports of the U.S. Patent Office:

Russ's Guide to Gazettes at the Hathi Trust helps to explain these next entries:

• Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office, v.1 (1872) - v.1262 (2002) in the Hathi Trust Digital Library.
• Annual Report of the Commissioner of Patents from 1842-1921 and Index of patents issued from the United States Patent Office from 1920-1974, in the Hathi Trust Digital Library.

Recommended Tutorials​ and Aids

• Multi-Step U.S. Patent Search Strategy - This is aimed at beginners who want to do a "preliminary patentability search" of the documents of the United States Patent Office.  A "preliminary patentability search" is your search of existing patents and applications to find out where your invention fits in.
  • On Step #2, you will probably prefer Google Patents to Patent Public Search.​​
• How to read a U.S. patent document - Help in understanding the parts of a U.S. patent.
• CPC Training - "The EPO and the USPTO have jointly prepared CPC training material to support users in their learning process of the CPC classification system."