Information about Patents
- How to Read a PatentBreakdown of how patents are arranged from Patent Lens.
- Basic Patent InformationGeneral information about patents from USPTO.
- TIFF Image ViewersLinks to TIFF viewers which are required to view patent images (necessary for all pre-1976 patents).
Tutorials
- Patent Search Tutorial and InformationProvides background information on patents as well as an interactive tutorial on how to search using the USPTO's website by codes and keywords. Created by the University of Texas at Austin.
- Espacenet TutorialLearn to search Espacenet, the European Patent Office's database.
NexisUni Patent Search
The Patents search form is located by clicking 'Menu' on the top left-hand side of the page and selecting 'Patent'. On the Patents search form, you can perform such tasks as:
- Find a patent by Patent Number
- Find a patent by Inventor
- Find a patent by Applicant Name or Applicant Number
- Search European and Japanese Patents
- Nexis Uni This link opens in a new windowAccess news, business, and legal sources. These include regional, national, and international newspapers, news wires, broadcast transcripts, non-English language news sources, magazines, trade journals, business publications, SEC filings, law reviews, statutory, administrative and case law.
Patent Searching Online
- USPTO Patent SearchingAllows you to search the full-text of issued patents from the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Images of the patents are only available as TIFF documents, and you may need to download a TIFF viewer to open the documents.
All patents issued in the United States (1790 - current) are searchable from the USPTO's website. There are several other databases that contain this information with different search engines and output features. You may want to explore searching with several of the interfaces to make your search comprehensive.
- SciFindern This link opens in a new windowFirst time users must register for SciFinder
Provides access to the full Chemical Abstracts database with citations to the literature of chemistry and patents, as well as compound information and substructure and reaction searching.
Once you register you can use SciFinder Mobile .
- Patent LensAllows you to search granted patents and applications from the US, Europe, Australia, and WIPO. Full-text available as HTML and PDF.
- Google PatentsApplies Google searching technology to the USPTO's database of patents. Patents are available as PDFs. **Note: Google used OCR technology to scan the documents from the USPTO's database and some mistakes are in the system. Check your results.
- EspacenetEuropean Patent Office website. Search by patent number (with or without country code) in the Smart Search box.
- Espacenet Advanced SearchSearch Espacenet by subject using a keyword search in the "Title or abstract" box.