What you already know and your motivation for searching the patent literature will guide your work:
- If you have a patent number. With a patent number or patent application number, usually you will be able to find the fulldocument posted on the internet or in a freely-available database.
- Keyword searching is good for jumping right into the patent literature and can help with finding subject classification and other information for follow-up work.
- Assignee and Inventor. If you know a company or inventor, you can search by name and find patents.
- Classification searching is the formal approach to subject searching recommended by patent examiners.
