About this post
- Patent searching is a complex subject that requires professional help.
- This guide will help you make use of free resources to gain knowledge that may help in an early assessment of your invention. It will also help you in discussing your invention with any professional.
- Free resources contain only limited information and full searching without payment is not possible because you will either need to pay someone else to search for you or pay a subscription to access a dedicated search resource.
What is a Patent?
About Intellectual Property Generally
Searching resources
- European Patent Office via UK Patent Office
- US Patent & Trade Mark Office
- Japanese Patents
- Australian Patent Office
Preliminary steps
- Identify key words that describe the invention. If necessary use dictionaries to find other words that might describe the same things. A couple of dictionary sites are OneLook and Dictionary.com.
- All inventions capable of patent protection have to be classified under the patent classification system. Try and identify what classification(s) the invention might fall under, but remember that an invention might fall under several classifications. To do this, access the patent classification guide at the World Intellectual Property Organisation.
- Use Google and other general web search engines to identify relevant information such as manufacturers of similar products.
- Try more academic searching using Google Scholar.
Searching strategy
Using the various patent search sites:
- Search for your keywords using abstract or quick searching options.
- Search using the relevant classification(s) to identify inventions that are similar
- Search using owner or proprietor searching against the names of manufacturers of similar products.
What to do with the results
- Print out the front pages for patents that you have found as these give you a summary of the inventions to which they relate.
- Read the front pages and note those that appear most relevant.
- Print out the full patent for those that seem most relevant. Read them to learn about the state of knowledge in the subject area of your invention.
- Carrying out more detailed patent searching yourself
- Try buying a day’s subscription to a professional search service such as Delphion.
- Get the UK Patent Office to carry out some searching for you. You can use the Patent Office Search and Advisory Service.
Getting professional help
- We can help in carrying out searching in conjunction with our consultant patent agents. We can also provide practical advice and act as a “critical friend” if you want to take your idea forward.
- We can discuss with you strategies for protection and what other rights might be relevant.
- We can help you with confidentiality agreements and commercial exploitation.
Final Warning!
The public disclosure of your invention (unless under circumstances of confidentiality) may prejudice your ability to obtain patent and other intellectual protection for your invention.
Don't forget http://www.FreePatentsOnline.com for free patent searching. You can search both US apps and US patents at the same time (something you can't do on the USPTO site), download PDF's for free (can't do that either) and search EPO data. There are a host of account features also for professional searchers. All free!
Posted by: James | 01 October 2006 at 03:40 PM