-Patent Searching

United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
The USPTO offers web access to bibliographic and full-text patent databases. These databases provide full-text of patents from 1976 to the present and full page images from 1790 to the present.

See What is a Patent?
See Patent Searching Tips.
See ‘What is Intellectual Property?’ in Frequently Asked Questions for Inventors
See ‘Manual of Patent Classification’

Fresh Patents
Provides access to the latest published US patent applications each week BEFORE the USPTO decision to
grant/deny.

pat2pdf.org
Given a patent number, pat2pdf.org will return a free, pdf formated version of the patent.

The Google Patent Search covers the entire collection of patents made available by the USPTO—from patents issued in the 1790s to present.

SciFinder Scholar is a research discovery tool that allows you to access a wide diversity of research from many scientific disciplines, including biomedical sciences, chemistry, chemical engineering, material science, agricultural science, and many others. It provides search interface for access to Chemical Abstracts online. Chemical Abstracts covers the published scientific research in chemistry, and offers searching by author name, research topic, substance identifier, chemical structure, or chemical reaction. Now includes the Substructure Module (SSM).

It provides information on:

• More than 17 million single- and multi-step reactions
• More than 1 billion predicted and experimental properties
• The CAS REGISTRY database – the original source and final authority for CAS Registry Numbers – updated daily
• All patent records, meeting CAS selection criteria, from 9 of the major patent offices are available online within 2 days of the patents’ issuance
• Sequences combined from CAS and GenBank databases, which are indexed and linked to scientific journal and patent literature

Sequences combined from CAS and GenBank databases, which are indexed and linked to scientific journal and patent literature

See: Content at a glance and Scifinder Scholar Overview for more details.

Access options:

Electronic Databases by Title.
Click on Scifinder Scholar for information on how to use it either on a Library computer or on a non-library computer. (4 concurrent user limit. Password accessible.)

(Scifinder Scholar How to Guides:

These How to Guides show step-by-step examples and include tips for using a variety of features available in SciFinder. Examples of guides available include: Research topic, Substructure searching, Chemical reactions, Molecular formula to find chemical substances, and Explore by journal or patent  using bibliographic citation.

Additional Information:

Scifinder Tutorials – Web Version

Patents at Mach 2: Technology on the Cutting Edge Workshop at the 2008 ASEE Annual conference

Abstract:

In 2007, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office received a record-breaking 450,000 new patent applications. Worldwide patent filings are on the rise, with innovations in information and computer technology, biotechnology and nanotechnology driving much of the increase. This hands-on workshop will introduce you to advanced techniques and tools for searching patents using case studies from biomedical engineering, biotechnology, electrical and mechanical engineering. You will learn how to use the U.S. and International patent classification systems to improve your search results and explore new online tools for keeping up to date with emerging technologies.

Jay’s presentation

Patents at Mach 2: Drexel Experience in a Biomedical Engineering class

For more information, handouts and further reading, please refer to:
Patents at Mach 2.0: Technology on the Cutting Edge