Research Guides: Patents and Trademarks: Patent Searching

How to find a patent

The easiest search is when you already have a number for an existing patent. Some resources you may use are:

Patent Public Search
Provides more convenient, remote, and robust full-text searching of all U.S. patents and published patent applications. Sample patent number search: 11000000.pn.
pat2pdf
Quickest way to retrieve a PDF of a U.S. patent if you already have a patent number.
Google Patents
Allows for searching of U.S. patents as well as those granted by other international patent offices
Espacenet
This database created by the European Patent Office (EPO) provides access to 90 million+ patents from around the world.

Although keyword searching is not the best way to find all patents related to one's idea (that would be classification searching), one can still benefit from a keyword search, using the following resources:

Patent Public Search
Provides more convenient, remote, and robust full-text searching of all U.S. patents and published patent applications.
Google Patents
Allows for searching of U.S. patents as well as those granted by other international patent offices
Espacenet
This database created by the European Patent Office (EPO) provides access to 90 million+ patents from around the world.

To perform a search for all related patents within a specific category, the following strategy is recommended by the USPTO:

Brainstorm terms to describe your invention.
Conduct a keyword search using Patent Public Search.
Conduct an in-depth review of the selected documents.
Expand the search to publications with relevant CPC classifications.
Review cited references.
Broaden your search with foreign patents, non-patent literature and/or a patent professional's search.

Before you begin, you may want to check out the video from the USPTO titled "How to Conduct a Preliminary U.S. Patent Search: A Step by Step Strategy."

Patent Searching Using USPTO Website

Before applying for a patent, it is wise to perform a search to confirm that nobody has already patented it or made it part of public knowledge. The USPTO suggests the following strategy for performing a patent search:

Brainstorm terms to describe your invention.
Conduct a keyword search using Patent Public Search.
Conduct an in-depth review of the selected documents.
Expand the search to publications with relevant CPC classifications.
Review cited references.
Broaden your search with foreign patents, non-patent literature and/or a patent professional's search.

Before you begin, you may want to check out the video from the USPTO titled "How to Conduct a Preliminary U.S. Patent Search: A Step by Step Strategy."

U.S. Patent Search Tools

Patent Public Search
Based on the advanced Patents End-to-End (PE2E) search tool USPTO examiners use to identify prior art, this free, cloud-based platform allows researchers to find granted U.S. patents, published patent applications, and advanced OCR searching of older patents. This database replaced PubWEST, PubEAST, PatFT, and AppFT.
Patent Center
Patent Center is the USPTO's Next Generation Patent filing/retrieval and account management system. Patent Center enhances the user experience by incorporating filing, application and customer self-administration management within a single user interface. Patent Center allows filers and researchers alike to access all publicly available documents related to a patent. This tool takes the place of EFS-Web and PAIR.
Google Patents
Allows full-text searching of U.S. patents and published patent applications, as well as patents granted by other international patent offices, including the European Patent Office. While easy to use, Google Patents' results are less precise than the governmental sites above that make use of the classification system. For a definitive search, uspto.gov or PubWEST/PubEAST are recommended for U.S. patents.

International Patent Search Tools

Espacenet
This database created by the European Patent Office (EPO) provides access to 90 million+ patents from around the world.
The Lens
With full-text searching of over 10 million patent documents from the U.S., Europe, Australia, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), as well as 81 million+ documents from nearly 100 jurisdictions, this resource has a powerful advanced search feature as well as a biological search, which includes species and sequence searching. One can also search non-patent literature to see what patents have cited an article or an author.
FreePatentsOnline.com
In addition to searching patents worldwide, this resource also includes technology journal articles, patent maps, and more.
PATENTSCOPE
Search service from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Can be used to search more than 58 million patent documents from around the world, including 3 million published international patent applications (PCT).

Texas A&M University Patents

This collection within Texas A&M University Libraries' institutional repository, OAKTrust, includes granted patents (not applications) by Texas A&M faculty, students and staff that list Texas A&M University System as the original assignee (owner).

Texas A&M University Patent Collection

Searching Special Subjects

Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Within company reports, find patents issued to that specific company.

SciFinderⁿ This link opens in a new window
This comprehensive index of scholarly literature for chemistry includes patents, allowing the researcher to see chemical innovations that relate to academic research in the field.
Reaxys This link opens in a new window
Contains the Beilstein (organic) and Gmelin (inorganic) handbooks, which provide extensive amounts of physical property data and synthesis information. Also includes chemical patents. Can be searched by CAS, formula, structure, reaction, as well as by various other parameters.

Materials Research Database This link opens in a new window
Brings together the majority of the leading materials science databases, including MicroPatent Materials Patents, which contains abstracts of U.S., European, and Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) patents relating to materials science.
Derwent Innovations Index This link opens in a new window
Facilitates rapid, precise patent searching, letting you conduct patent and citation searches of inventions in chemical, electrical, electronic, and mechanical engineering.

The Lens
Allows full-text searching of over 10 million patent documents from the U.S., Europe, Australia, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), as well as 80 million DNA and protein sequences disclosed in patents.

Petroleum Abstracts TULSA® Database This link opens in a new window
By indexing patent filings along with journal articles, books, conference proceedings, government reports, standards and theses, this database allows the user to see innovations in the area of petroleum development in the context of a broad array of scholarly and applied literature. Citations and abstracts only. For the full-text of a patent, note its number and country, go to that country's intellectual property website, and search.

DOEpatents
Searchable database of patent information resulting from Department of Energy sponsored research and development. DOEpatents consists of bibliographic records, with full text where available, either via a PDF file or an HTML link to the record at the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Searching Plant Patents

You can search plant patents using many of the suggested sources on this site, but the majority will only have black and white images of these plants. The color is an important part of a plant patent; luckily there are options for viewing these color images. As a PTRC, the Business Library and Collaboration Commons at Texas A&M University has print color plant patents through April 11, 2023 in their collection. The USPTO stopped printing color plant patents after that date.

There are some options for finding color plant patent images online, which can be found below.

Patent Center
Patent Center is the USPTO's patent filing/retrieval and account management system. Color images from granted plant patents may be found here. Enter either the application, patent, PCT, publication, or international design registration number in the search field. For example, select "Patent #" from the dropdown and then type PP32000. Select Supplemental Content from the menu and download the Design Drawings. These should be the color images.
Plant Patents Image Database (University of Maryland)
Librarians at the University of Maryland Libraries have scanned color prints of plant patents within their collection dating back to the first in 1931. This is a searchable and browsable database.
Plant Patent Color Images (New York Public Library)
Database for color images of plant patents from the New York Public Library's Science, Industry, and Business Library (SIBL), with images patents from 2012-2017.

Patents and Trademarks