Patent Searching for SEAS Students

Intellectual Property (IP) Law includes copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets.

• Copyright - United States Copyright Office, Library of Congress
• Patents and trademarks - United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Department of Commerce
• Trade secret - an alternative option to patents

A patent is an intellectual property right granted by the United States government to an inventor or owner “to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States” for a limited time in exchange for public disclosure of the invention. 

• U.S. Constitution: Article I, Section 8, Clause 8:

  [The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

There are numerous compelling reasons to conduct a patent search, and discovering exclusive technical information stands out as particularly beneficial.

Around 70-90% of technical knowledge is exclusively documented in patents. This enables students to study how different approaches have addressed specific design challenges and delve into the latest advancements in technology (state-of-the-art).

• Most patents are written in legal and highly technical language
  • The title of a patent might not be very helpful in describing the technology
    • X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System
• The claims are written by lawyers for lawyers
  • The claims are the most important part of the patent as far a providing the legal protection if challenged in court
• The Abstract, Summary, Background sections are more straightforward
• Product names are often created after a patent is written (sometimes by the marketing department rather than the inventor e.g. Post-it Note)
• Keyword searching is not sufficient when doing a comprehensive patent prior art search
  • You should be familiar with using the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) system

Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC)

 In 2015 the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) replaced the United States Patent Classification (USPC) system.

• Cooperative Patent Classification- hierarchy and description
• CPC scheme and CPC definitions
• CPC Training - The EPO and the USPTO have jointly prepared CPC training material to support users in their learning process of the CPC classification system.

Recommended Tutorials

• How to do a patent search - UCF Libraries
• Patent Searching Tutorial using Espacenet - great 8-minute video tutorial from the University of Michigan Library

Recommended Tools

• Google Patents - is a good place to start (Note: Google Patents doesn't provide complete coverage compared to the USPTO or Espacenet)
• Espacenet - The European Patent Office; provides access to more than 100 million patents including more than 10 million U.S. patents