Research Guides: Patents: Home

What is a Patent?

What is a Patent? A patent is a grant by the U.S. government to an inventor (person) of the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling his/her patented invention in the United States for a period of 20 years from the date of application (beginning June 1995) (assuming maintenance fees are paid). It can not be renewed. This right can be sold or licensed to third parties in return for fees and royalties. An invention must be new, useful and unobvious to qualify as patentable.

Major types of patents include: Design, Utility, Plant and Reissue Patents.

Design Patents cover the ornamental appearance of an article of commerce only. Items covered by a design patent might also qualify for copyright protection in some cases.
Utility Patents cover an article or process and are divided into mechanical, chemical or electrical groups. This is the primary type of U.S. Patent.
Plant Patents cover distinct and new varieties of botanical plants invented or discovered and asexually produced.
Reissue Patents are granted if there is a substantial error or errors in the original patent.

Why search Patents?

Why Search Patents?

80% of patent information is never disclosed or published elsewhere.
Patents contain a wealth of specific technical detail, research data, and drawings.
51% (2013) of US patents granted to foreign nationals.
Patents and patent applications often published earlier than academic papers.
The USA over 8 million granted patents representing 170 years of technology.

If you are an inventor, you should be aware of relevant prior art in your technology. If you are an entrepreneur, you should monitor your competitors' new products, and where they are patented. If you are involved in applied research, you need to review new and pending patents in your discipline. More.

Patents are the first place to look. Over 80% of the information contained in recent patent literature is not published elsewhere.

Resources for Locating Information on Granted U.S. Patents

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Resources

Classification Definitions
Defines the type of product covered by each class and subclass.
Concordance: United States Patent Classification to International Patent Classification
Allows conversion from international to U.S. classification numbers and vice versa.
Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) Scheme
The Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) effort is a joint partnership between the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the European Patent Office (EPO) where the Offices have agreed to harmonize their existing classification systems (European Classification (ECLA) and United States Patent Classification (USPC) respectively) and migrate towards a common classification scheme.
Access Classification Information by Symbol
Access information on Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC), USPC, and IPC8
Directory of Patent Depository Libraries
Fees
Index of Patents Issued from the United States Patent and Trademark Office
Index to the U.S. Patent Classification
An alphabetical index to the Manual of Classification
Manual of Classification
A numerical listing of all classes and subclasses
Manual of Patent Examining Procedures
Official Gazette of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Patents
A listing of patents issued each week. It gives a brief description (usually the primary claim) and a drawing for each invention.
Electronic Official Gazette for Patents (eOG:P)
The Electronic Official Gazette allows you to browse through the issued patents for the week. The eOG:P can be browsed by classification or type of patent, for example, utility, design, and plant. Specific patents can be accessed by class/subclass or patentee name. A link is provided to the full text of the patent in the USPTO Full Text Database from each bibliographic record. Clicking the "Full Text" button in the upper left corner of the patent record will take you to the full text.
U.S. Patent Full Text Databases
Search and display the full text content of U.S. patents issued from January 1, 1976 to the most recent weekly issue date.

Patent Tutorials

Patent Searching
Courtesy of the University of Minnesota Libraries
How to Conduct a Preliminary U.S. Patent Search
Courtesy of the USPTO
Guide on the Side: Patent Search Strategy
Created by Purdue University Libraries

Other Resources for Accessing U.S. Patent Information

Derwent Innovations Index
Covers over 14.3 million basic inventions from worldwide patent-issuing authorities. Conduct patent and citation searches of inventions in chemical, electrical, electronic, and mechanical engineering. Coverage 1963-present.
Espacenet : Europe's Network of Patent Databases
International patent search and an excellent source for historical U.S. patents back to 1920.

Freepatentsonline
Google Patents
Good starting search (patent number, general topic, known inventor name, known company name)
Pat2pdf.org
With US patent number, download pdf format of US patents.
Patent Fetcher
With patent number, download all USPTO and worldwide patents in the pdf format

SciFinder: Account Registration (First Time Users)
First-time users sign up and register for a SciFinder-N account using your UC email address. Registered SciFinder-N account users can access this extensive database for chemistry-related literature and patents, chemical substance and reaction databases, and chemical supplier catalogs. The database searches journal articles, book chapters, patents, conference papers, technical reports, chemical property data.
SciFinder (Registered Users)
Registered SciFinder-N account users can access this extensive database for chemistry-related literature and patents, chemical substance and reaction databases, and chemical supplier catalogs. The database searches journal articles, book chapters, patents, conference papers, technical reports, chemical property data.

Resources for Identifying Non-U.S. Patent Information

Canadian Patent Database

Espacenet : Europe's Network of Patent Databases
The full collection of patent information for eighty countries from the European Patent Office. Most information included is bibliographic. For some major countries the full text of the patent is available while other countries include the full image, too. Countries having full-text patents in the database include: European Patent Organization, France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States of America, and WIPO. Over 90 million patents from 1836 to the present are included in the database (dates vary by country). A convenient patent translator is also available.

European Patent Office
International Patent Classification System
Japanese Patent Office Industrial Property Digital Library
State Intellectual Property Office of the P.R.C.
Other Intellectual Property Office Web Sites
The Lens
Searches the full text of patents for US, World (WO), European (EP), and Australian (AU) patents.
Patentscope
Provides access to international Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications in full text format on the day of publication, as well as to patent documents of participating national and regional patent offices.
Patent Translate
EPO and Google offer this free patent translation service.

Obtaining Copies of Patents

Interlibrary Loan (UC Libraries)
U.S. Patent Depository Libraries
The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County is a U.S. Patent Depository Library. They have copies of U.S. patents from 1790. The Public Library also has European Applications and Patents (EPO) from 1988. For more patent information at the Cincinnati Public Library, see: http://www.cincinnatilibrary.org/features/patents.asp

Additional Reading

Additional Information

University of Cincinnati faculty, staff, and students can get more information on the actual U.C. policies and the process of obtaining a patent on a U.C. sponsored invention from the U.C. Intellectual Property Office.