Patent searching
Patents applications and granted patents are published by patent offices around the world and are publicly available documents. Published patents provide a wealth of information which can be used in a number of ways:
- part of a literature search when embarking on a research programme
- exploring the way patents are written and the way in which inventions are claimed as being novel and inventive
- assessing the likelihood of one's own work being patentable over existing publications
- assessing the likelihood of commercial activities infringing existing patents
In the majority of countries patent applications are published 18 months after they are filed. One needs to consider if a document is a granted patent (lapsed?) or an application, which may never have reached grant. Published patent information can be accessed as follows:
- Bristol City Library holds paper copies of all GB patents and searchable CD-Roms of all European Patent Office (EPO) patents
- The UK Patent Office can carry out patent searches at a commercial rate; typically a search will cost a few hundred pounds upwards
- Patent Attorney's can carry out comprehensive searches for a client; typically a search will cost a few hundred pounds upwards
- Free web search sites
Free web search sites
UK Patent Office
UK Patent Office provides access to the UK's Patent Register to establish current patent status (i.e. whether a patent is granted, still in force, lapsed etc.) for all UK and UK-designated European patents. This can only be searched by either application or publication numbers. There is also a link to the EspaceNet database which provides bibliographic details (patent number, inventor, applicant etc.) of UK patents for preceeding 24 months. EspaceNet also has details of the following patents: EP, Other European Countries, PCT, Worldwide & Japanese.
European Patent Office
European Patent Office provides access to the EspaceNet database (see UK Patent Office details above).
US Patent & Trade Mark Office
The US Patent & Trade Mark Office provides full-text published applications and granted patents (drawings can be downloaded separately). The site is good for keyword and patent number searching. There is also a more advanced search engine which allows use of Boolean operators (eg and, or, not) and truncation of terms (eg use electric$ for electrical, electrics, electricity, etc).
Japanese Patent Office
Japanese Patent Office shows Japanese patents from 1993 (bibliographic details only). Useful for obtaining English language abstracts for applications and granted patents.
Worldwide Patent Offices
Worldwide Patent Offices give the World Intellectual Property Organisation's (WIPO) links to Patent Offices around the world.
For further advice and assistance on patent searching, please contact our Intellectual Property Administrator.