Patent Searching: the Basics
The United States Patent & Trademark Office has some good basic resources on patent searching available on its site.
- Go to: http://www.uspto.gov and click on "How to…"
- In the right column select "Find Existing patents & trademarks"
- Then "How to search for patents at a PTDL"
- This brings you to "The 7-Step Strategy"
In addition to walking you through a patent search, the page links you directly to the relevant resources and indexes on the USPTO web site.- Two important resources are mentioned in the first two steps.
- Index to the U.S. Patent Classification
- Alphabetical subject guide
Browse through letters or perform a search on a specific subject - Links to number in Manual of Classification
Example:- Search for “baby stroller”
- What next? Browse “B’s”
- Search for “baby carriage”
- What do you get? Where is the baby carriage?
- Use toolbar
• <Edit>
• <Find on this page> - Note class and subclass
- Manual of Classification
- Can do a search of a class number here
- In search results, click on Class link to see Class Definition
- In the top right corner of the definition is a small
blue box with a white “A”
• This links you to current patent applications within that class - There are several sections to the Class Definition
- Section I provides the actual definition and an overview of the class number
- Section II provides a description of overlap or reference to other classes and references within the current class
- Section III defines the subclass references
- Section IV defines the references to other classes
Section V provides the actual subclasses with descriptions - Red boxes with a white “P” next to subclasses provide links to patents within those subclasses
- Example
- Search “baby carriage” class – 280
- Look for subclass – 47.38+
- Look at patents within subclass by clicking on “P
- In the top right corner of the definition is a small
blue box with a white “A”
- Two important resources are mentioned in the first two steps.
© 2007 Olin College of Engineering