Finding U. S. and International Patents

Finding / Checking Patents

• United States Patent Office.   http://www.uspto.gov/main/patents.htm
  Helpful information booklet General Information Concerning Patents:    
  Also see the Independent Inventor Resources.
  
  
• U.S. Patent Database 
  Full page images of patents in TIFF format from 1790 to the present.
  Searching by title and abstracts words, full text of patent, inventor or assignee is only available for 1976 to the present.
  Class code and patent number searching only for 1790 - 1975. Comprehensive searching requires the use of the Patent Classification System. 
  
    Includes the Manual of Classification.    http://www.uspto.gov/go/classification/
  
  Free full image of patents (from the 1790 beginning); requires installation of a (free) .tiff viewer.   System requirements and plug-ins available at: http://www.uspto.gov/patft/help/images.htm
  
  The USPTO site also includes U.S. Trademarks database and a link to the United States Copyright Office.
  
  All current forms are in Adobe's PDF format for viewing and printing online.
  Acrobat 5.0 (minimum) is required for all fillable forms. http://www.uspto.gov/web/forms/index.html

• Electronic Patent Official Gazette. 
  Announcements of issued patents from U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The most recent 52 issues of the Patent Official Gazette are available online.  Prior issues of the Gazette are available at the PTDL's.  The Electronic Patent Official Gazette allows you to browse or search through the patents issued each week.  You can browse by geographic origin of the inventor, inventor or assignee name and patent class and subclass. The Official Gazette includes the summary of the patent and a representative drawing.  You can link to the full text of the patent from the Gazette.
  
  
• USPTO Patent Assignments. 
  Updated continuously as assignments are recorded. Determine who has the rights to a particular patent or patent application.  
  
  
• Patent Application Information Retrieval. 
  (PAIR) This system retrieves patented and pending published applications. PAIR makes available the Image File Wrapper (IFW) which is the scanned images of many of the application documents that were submitted.  Some inventors still request that their application remain unpublished and unavailable. 
  
  

• Forms for conducting business with the U.S. Patent Office.
  
  
• U.S. Patent Office. Electronic Filing System.    Fee schedule for 2005.
  
  
• Patent Maintenance Fees. 
  Provides the means for patent holders to pay maintenance fees and also allows checking on who currently owns a patent and if the fees are up-to-date or if the patent has been abandoned.
  
  
• Manual of Patent Examining Procedure. 
  (MPEP)  8th ed., 2001.  Rev. 2004.  U.S. Patent Office.
  
  
• Registered patent agents and attorneys in Ohio  
  Database of attorneys that have licenses to practice before the  U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

• Pat2pdf.org  Provides U.S. patents granted from 1838 to present. Search with patent number.
• Free Patents Online  Provides access to U.S. patents from number 4,000,000 to the present.
• Patents on Cloud 8.  Charge is $0.49 per patent.  They provides patents from many countries and will send them zipped together in PDF format.
  
  

International Patent Search Sites

German and many European countries, as well as US, EP, WIPO, and Japan; Free PDF copies of patents (page-by-page) when available.  Simple and complex interfaces; useful for cross-country searching.

European and World (WIPO) patents (U.K.) full searching for the current 24 months of patent applications.  Free retrieval of individual patents by number (PDF format) varies by country; some begin with 1920.

Free searching from about 1976.  Free machine translation service beginning about 1994. 

Pacific Rim countries including:
Singapore, Thailand, China, Korea, Taipei, as well as Australian, Canada, European, Japan, UK, US, and WIPO.  Some are full-text; others are only indexed.  Searching and printing patents is free many value-added links with a paid subscription.  Currently requires Internet Explorer as the browser.

About United State Patents

A (U.S.) patent is a grant of a property right by the (U.S.) Government to you, the inventor, "to exclude others from making, using or selling the invention." Patents differ significantly from copyrights and trademarks. All patents must be "maintained" by paying a fee to the US Patent & Trademark Office at certain intervals.If you fail to pay the maintenance fee, your patent expires and you lose exclusive rights to your invention. Only a special act of Congress can extend the term of a patent, though certain pharmaceutical patents (a special type of chemical patent, not to be confused with patent medicines) don't require such extreme measures.

There are three categories of patents in the U.S., according to the current patent law http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/legis.htm

Utility patents, granted for 20 years, apply to new and useful processes, machines, manufactures, compositions of matter, or any new and useful improvement of one of these. Generally speaking, if your invention does something, you should apply for a utility patent. Traditionally, utility patents have been divided into three basic types: mechanical, electrical, and chemical (including pharmaceutical patents)

• General Information Concerning Patents: What Can Be Patented?

Design patents, granted for 14 years, apply to new, original, and ornamental design for an article or manufacture. To highlight the difference between design and utility patents, consider the original Macintosh computer. The plastic shell that covers all working parts is covered by a design patent, while many of the working parts it hides are covered by utility patents.

• A Guide to Filing A Design Patent Application: Definition of a Design

Plant patents, granted for 14 years, to any person who has invented or discovered and asexually reproduced any distinct and new variety of plant, including cultivated sports, mutants, hybrids, and newly found seedlings, other than tuber-propagated plant or a plant found in an uncultivated state."

• General Information About 35 U.S.C. 161 Plant Patents: What is a Plant Patent?

Three Criteria

To receive a patent your invention must meet at least the following three criteria.

Usefulness

Anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, compositions of matter, or any new and useful improvement of one of these can receive a utility patent. If you invent a new, original, and ornamental design for an article or manufacture you may receive a design patent. Plant patents work a bit differently. Since the language for plant patents is both very precise and very technical, we quote from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) itself:

"Plant patents are granted to any person who has invented or discovered and asexually reproduced any distinct and new variety of plant, including cultivated sports, mutants, hybrids, and newly found seedlings, other than tuber-propagated plant or a plant found in an uncultivated state."

Novelty

Your patent must be novel. That is, if the invention has been known of or described in a printed publication somewhere (the U.S., Greenland, Morocco . . .) before you invented it, or if it has been patented or described more than one year prior to your patent application, you can't get a patent. So if you invent something, begin to market it, and apply for a patent more than a year after you've made your invention public, you've prevented yourself from getting a patent.

(Non) -obviousness

A further stipulation of novelty refers to obviousness. Even if what you want to patent is not exactly described in published information, and even if you have created something with one or more differences from the most nearly similar thing known, the US Patent & Trademark Office might still refuse your claims if it thinks those differences are non-obvious. For instance, changes in materials ("But nobody has ever made an internal combustion engine out of pork sausage before?!") or changes in size ("But this toothpick is REALLY BIG?!") don't usually count for much.

Getting your Patent

Be sure to invent something before you apply for a patent. Though this sounds like a silly thing to say, remember that to obtain a patent you need more than an idea: you need a useful, novel, and non-obvious invention that works. Once you have invented something useful and non-obvious (and even before that, probably) you should search existing patents as thoroughly as you can to see whether your invention is indeed novel. You can search for patents yourself at a Depository Library (Ohio Patent Depositories), or have someone else (like a patent attorney) do it for you.

Registered patent agents and attorneys in Ohio   Database of attorneys that have licenses to practice before the  U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The goal of a patent search is to identify the prior art--that is, any patents related to the work of interest. The results of a patent search are used to ascertain whether or not there is sufficient novelty in the new invention to warrant patenting. Determining whether an invention warrants patenting should perhaps follow consideration of whether an invention is worth patenting. The more generous of estimates suggest that two to three percent of patents make money. Because a patent has little value apart from protecting the profits generated by a commercially viable invention, starting the project with a patent search (e.g., "I have an idea and I want to see if it's patented") is putting the proverbial cart before the horse. Edison said: "Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent."

The U. S. Patent & Trademark Office is not concerned with the success or failure of inventions in the marketplace. If you decide to apply for a patent, the USPTO will make their fees (as will a patent attorney or agent, if you hire one) whether or not your application ultimately issues as a patent and whether or not you wind up selling a million units or nothing at all.

International Patent Protection

Patent protection granted to an inventor by a government is only valid in the country where the inventor requested it. The rights do not extend beyond that country. For example, U.S. patents are valid only in the 50 states and its territories, and do not provide legal protection in any other countries. When you wish to obtain patent protection for the same invention in other country, you must file an application in each of them separately. Attempting to pursue patent protection individually in several countries, however, can be complex and expensive, since each country has its own unique patent laws and practices. Important features in patent laws and practices that are significantly different among various nations are being negotiated under the auspices of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The WIPO is one of the 16 specialized agencies of the United Nations and has its intergovernmental organization with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Its main mission is to promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world through cooperation among nations. (Intellectual property includes inventions, trademarks, industrial designs, and copyrights.) Currently, the WIPO membership includes 179 countries, over 90 percent of the world's countries.

The USPTO Patent Full-Text and Full-Page Image Databases site provides free copies of U.S. patents. http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html

Caution : patent searching is particularly complicated.  The following items are useful for investigative searching or for obtaining specific patents by their numbers.

Introductory information on patents (types, patent law, etc.) may be found at

General Information Concerning Patents From the USPTO
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/index.html

United Inventors Association  the entire invention, patenting, and marketing process
http://www.uiausa.com/

What Every Chemist Should Know about Patents

        Appendix 1: Sample of a U. S. Patent  PDF document
        Appendix 2. First U. S. Patent Application Publication  PDF document

Obtaining Copies of Patents

• Pat2pdf.org  Provides U.S. patents granted from 1838 to present. Search with patent number.
• Free Patents Online  Provides access to U.S. patents from number 4,000,000 to the present.
• Patents on Cloud 8.  Charge is $0.49 per patent.  They provides patents from many countries and will send them zipped together in PDF format.
  
  

The esp@cenet European Patent Center and USPTO sites provide full-text and/or image copies of patents, but these may be difficult to print or unsuitable for submission with research proposals, formal patent searches, etc.They also offer only a limited number of countries and/or types. Alternatives for high-quality prints are:

Micropatent Patent Delivery Service        http://www.micropat.com/

The Micropatent site provides high-resolution copies of EP [European] and WO [World] patents as well as U.S., for a fee. Many patents are cross-patented in a number of countries, so that it is sometimes possible to find a U.S.-equivalent of a non-U.S. patent by searching the USPTO sites. $4.95 and up per patent for Web delivery; prices and dates vary.  User must establish a billing account.  Patents are delivered via the Web, via Fax, via express or regular mail.

Patent Depositories in Ohio

The nearest Patent Depository is:
Ohio State University Libraries,   Columbus, Ohio      614 292-3022

Other Patent and Trademark Depository Libraries in Ohio are :

• Akron-Summit County Public Library       330-643-9075
• Public Library of Cincinnati & Hamilton County      513-369-6971
• Cleveland Public Library      216-623-2870
• Toledo/Lucas County Public Library        419-259-5212
• Wright State University's Dunbar Library      937-775-2925

Registered patent agents and attorneys in Ohio   Database of attorneys that have licenses to practice before the  U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Other Resources for Patent and Intellectual Property Information

Canadian Patents Database http://patents1.ic.gc.ca/intro-e.html

Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) -- CIPO's Canadian Patent Database

This database lets you access over 75 years of patent descriptions and images. You can search, retrieve, and study more than 1,500,000 patent documents.
Search Options | Basic | Number | Boolean | Advanced |

DNA Patent Database http://dnapatents.georgetown.edu/

The DPD enables studies of DNA-based patents issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), making full-text patents available at no cost, and defining a searchable set of patents of interest to those studying genomics, genetics, biotechnology, and other fields. The goal of this database is to make information freely available to the public about policy questions in biotechnology.

DOE PATENT Databases http://www.osti.gov/dublincore/gencncl/search.easy.jsp

Department of Energy Patent Databases - Bibliographic citations of patents and patent applications owned by DOE or its contractors or assignees.Associated full-text is available for some current patent applications. 2 databases Current database patents and patent applications and Cumulative database since 1978

LII Legal Information Institute from Cornell Law School

Patent Law: an Overview http://www.law.cornell.edu:80/topics/patent.html

U.S. Patent Act, as amended United States Code (search official version made available from the U.S. House of Representatives)
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/35/

Intellectual Property: Patents   http://www.lawmoose.com/internetlawlib/326.htm

Very basic research is free with front pages only of granted U.S. patents - full search options with paid subscriptions. Search USPTO patent descriptions since 1971 and patent images (not downloadable) since 1980.