A patent is protection granted by a national government for an invention. This protection excludes others from making, using or selling an invention for a period of up to 20 years. Many drug companies and university researchers seek patent protection to recover research and development costs for patents related to specific genes and proteins, laboratory techniques and drugs. In order for patents to be issued by a granting agency such as a Patent Office they need to be new, useful and not obvious to others working in the same field.
Novelty and non-obviousness are judged against everything publicly known before the invention, as shown in earlier patents and other published material. This body of public knowledge is called "prior art.
There are three types of patents:
A patent family:
Note: Patent coverage only applies within the country that grants a patent so that an inventor must file a patent application in every country for which protection is wanted.
To be most effective in your search for patents you must determine how your invention works, NOT how you will use your invention.
Need help understanding the patent process? Click here to find some answers at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.
US Patent & Trademark Office Fulltext Patents Database - The Full-Text Database now offers all US patents issued since 1790, in the form of searchable patent numbers and current US classifications hyperlinked to full-page images of each page of each patent. Searchable in five-year blocks back to 1976, and in one additional block covering the years1790-1975.
esp@cenet - Search over 50 million patents from 71 countries, dating back as far as the 1800s. Includes the European Patent Office, the World Intellectual Property Organization as well as individual countries.
TESS Trademark Electronic Search System - Lists over 3 million pending, registered and dead federal trademarks from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
WIPO World Intelllectual Property Organization PCT Patents Database - Part of the WIPO Intellectual Property Digital Library. Search and retrieve fulltext for WIPO PCT patent applications published as PCT pamphlets since January 1997, and where applicable, republished since April 1998. Bibliographic data, abstracts, drawings and images of PCT pamphlets are provided for all published and republished international applications in the collection. To search the entire collection rather than only the current week, be sure and select ALL weeks To retrieve a patent by number, search the PUBLICATION NUMBER (e.g. WO 2004/019554). search only the number with punctuation and spaces removed (e.g.2004019954).
PatentScope ((WIPO) - International patent applications from 1978 to the present.
Patent Lens - Australia, European, United States, and WIPO patent documents from 1970 to the present.
Google Patents - U.S. patents in pdf format from 1790 to the present.
EPO patents from 1978 to the present. Text only with linkout to EPO and PDF download.
DNA patent database - The DNA Patent Database (DPD) contains a collection of DNA-based patents and patent applications issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). It contains patents from 1971 to the present and patent applications from 2001 to the present.