PRAYER

Father God,
Come be with us today
Fill our hearts with joy
Fill our minds with learning
Fill our classrooms with peace
Fill our lessons with fun
Fill our friendships with kindness
Fill our school with love
Keep us all safe from sickness and harm. Amen
GREETINGS!
TERMS/ABBREVIATIONS TO KNOW

● USPTO – United States Patent and Trademark Office

● EPO – European Patent Office
● WIPO – World Intellectual Property Organization
● DocDB – EPO’s master documentation database with
worldwide coverage.
TERMS/ABBREVIATIONS TO KNOW

● INPADOC – International Patent Documentation

● PCT – Patent Cooperation Treaty
● NPL – Non patent literature
PURPOSE OF PATENT SEARCH/LITERATURE REVIEW

● To inform, provide appropriate research and

demonstrate continued progress towards the project
goal.
● Make sure to include all copies of patents and
articles found with your patent search/literature
review.
WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE DOING A
PATENT KEYWORD SEARCH?
● General Information
○ Title
○ Summary of invention
○ Name (s) of inventor (s)
○ Dates and filing numbers
○ Status of the patent
○ States where patent would apply
● Technical Information
● Technical description
● Drawing of invention
● Additional drawings & descriptions of what is protected
6 STEPS IN PATENT SEARCH

3
1 5 6
2 Determine 4
Know what Narrow down Search non-
Disclosing key features Broaden your
you’re getting to the patent
invention of your search
into. classification literature
invention
5 FREE PATENT SEARCH ENGINES AND DATABASES

● Google patents
● Lens
● Espacenet
● Patentscope
● USPTO
GOOGLE PATENTS

● Google Patents is our top recommendation

among the free patent search engines.
● It is particularly useful for doing a quick search on
a topic.
● The speed and user interface make it a breeze to
identify relevant documents quickly.
GOOGLE PATENTS

● It provides machine translations for documents in

other languages making it valuable for simple
searching using just the English language.
● It also presents all the relevant information such
as images, legal status, assignment, citation on
the same page for easy access and
understanding.
GOOGLE PATENTS

● Some of the drawbacks include the potential of

missing out on recent publications and the need
to manually verify information, such as status,
priority, assignment, etc., due to a lag in updates.
● Despite these limitations, Google Patents is
undeniably fast and easy to use for finding
relevant results.
LENS
● Lens is a free patent and scholarly search and citation
tool offered by Cambia, an Australian non-profit
organization.
● It sources its patent data from various national
registers such as the USPTO, EPO, WIPO, EPO’s
DocDB, and other databases.
● One of its primary strengths is the ability to combine
patent, sequence, non-patent literature, citations, and
visualizations making it an attractive proposition as a
discovery and analytics tool.
LENS

● Advanced searching, native language searching,

and filters are possible. It is fast and easy to use.
● Further, registering for a free account also allows
you to access additional features, such as saved
searches, exports, and history that are not
currently possible in Google patents.
LENS

● There is not much to complain about the free,

open-sourced and evolving Lens.
● It is only slightly behind other top databases in
terms of reliability due to its frequency of
updates, the extent of coverage, and missing
features/fields.
ESPACENET

● Espacenet is an EPO-developed patent database

that has been recently overhauled to make it
useful for scientists, engineers, and
entrepreneurs.
● The new Espacenet allows you to do full-text
searches in multiple languages.
ESPACENET
● Some useful options include smart search, advanced
search, classification search and machine translation
of text.
● Espacenet is limited for performing complex
searching requiring lengthy terms, operators and
analysis.
● We use it in certain situations such as for downloads,
verifying patent information, and inspecting INPADOC
family members, legal status, citations, and national
registers/file wrappers.
PATENTSCOPE

● The PATENTSCOPE is a WIPO administered

database that is focused on published PCT
applications and patent documents from various
national registers.
● It has a wide coverage that is also targeted at
engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs rather
than expert searchers/examiners.
PATENTSCOPE

● WIPO Translate is a tool that has been trained

exclusively using patent documents and domains
derived from IPC in offering machine translations.
● Advanced search options and features such as
national phase information, open access NPL
search, extended family information, chemical
structure/substructure search (requires login),
etc., are available in Patentscope making it a
useful research tool.
USPTO

● If you are interested in finding out particular U.S.

patents and applications, there is no better source
than USPTO’s website.
● The user interface is rather uninspiring and the
search options are limited.
USPTO

● However, the USPTO patent search scores in

being the source of truth when it comes to patent
publications.
● USPTO offers a handy guide for the uninitiated on
patent searching and other tools such as dossier,
file wrapper, sequence, patent examination data
system, assignment reel, etc.
KINDS OF PATENT KEYWORD SEARCHES

● Some tools search patent’s full text. These are

usually called full-text databases
● Others search patent summaries.
● Summaries are usually made up of the
information on the first page.
● These tools are often called bibliographic
databases.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATABASES OFTEN INCLUDE:

● An abstract, or short description of the patent

● Classification codes
● Related patent numbers and dates
● Images or drawings
● Keyword
The Patent Search/Literature Review should contain the
following information:
● Provide a list of sources used to search for
patents/articles (include websites, libraries,
contacts with those knowledgeable in patent
searching, programs used, etc.)
● Provide a list of key words used to search for
patents/articles.
The Patent Search/Literature Review should contain the
following information:
● Provide a list of patent classifications used to
search for patents.
● Were you able to find any granted patents or
patent applications that are the same as (or
very similar to) your proposed product? How
are the documents you found different from
your proposed product?
The Patent Search/Literature Review should contain the
following information:
● What scientific and trade literature already
exists regarding your proposed product?
● Include a summary of the information you
found and what other future work might be
needed to make the patent search complete.
●