|
What is a patent?
A government grant to an inventor of the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention, usually for a limited period. Patents are granted for new and useful machines, manufactured products, and industrial processes and for significant improvements of existing ones. Patents also are granted for new chemical compounds, foods, and medicinal products, as well as for the processes used to produce them.
(Encyclopædia Britannica)
Patent Search
There are a variety of patent finding tools. The following list comprises the most important and common ones.
Irish Patents Office
The Patent Database provides access to patent information for over 45 million patents. It is linked to the European Patent Office and World Intellectual Property Organisation and includes therefore not only Irish patents.
The website provides also Trade Mark, Design and Copyright sections.
Lexis Nexis
LexisNexis Butterworths is the UK’s leading provider of legislation, commentary and analysis. It also provides full text access to patents.
In order to search for patents, go to "Sources", select "Keywords" and search for "Patents". This will give you the available patent resources and you can select and search the database you are interested in.
esp@cenet
This is the search engine of the European Patent Office. The freely available database gives you access to 60 million patents from all over the world. It includes patent applications and granted patents.
If you start a search from the Irish Patent Office or from the UK Intellectual Property Office you will be linked to this database.
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
This freely available database provides access to granted U.S. patents and patent applications from 1790 to present. To view the full text of U.S. patents you will need to install a TIFF plug-in for your browser. See here for further details (works best with IE).
PatentScope
This service by the World Intellectual Property Organization provides access to published PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) international applications and to the latest bibliographic data and documents contained in the files of PCT international applications as far back as 1978.
WikiPatents
The WikiPatents Community contributes to the US patent system by reviewing issued patents and pending patent applications. WikiPatents features a wiki-like interface to review, rate, and discuss patents -- plus free patent PDF downloads, file histories, and advanced patent searching.
Google Patent Search
Google Patent Search lets you search over 7 million US patents from 1790 onwards. It is still in beta phase and doesn't include the most recent patents. But because the patent documents are scanned, it allows full text search.
- Back to Top
|
Patent Search (continued)
Intellogist
Intellogist by Landon IP is a new website, which hosts a wide variety of tools for patent and technical literature searching.
Features of Intellogist include:
- customizable charts that compare free patent search resources;
- interactive world map of patent search resources;
- reports on publicly available databases of patents and non-patent literature;
- links to many technical research resources, grouped by technical field.
- Back to Top
Patent Application
For information how to apply for a patent visit one of the following web sites:
Irish Patents Office
U.K. Intellectual Property Office
European Patent Office
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
World Intellectual Property Organization
- Back to Top
Patent Statistics
The World Intellectual Property organization publishes an annual World Patent Report which includes statistics
World Patent Report
- Back to Top
Patent Journals
There are a few patent journals freely available online, like:
Patents Office Journal, published by the Irish Patents Office;
The Official Journal of the EPO, by the European Patent Office;
IP Insight, the newsletter of the UK Intellectual Property Office;
Intellectual Property Today (free registration required)
UCD Library provides access to:
World Patent Information via ScienceDirect;
Journal of the Patent and Trademark Society via WilsonWeb;
Patent Law and Cases via LexisNexis Butterworth and HeinOnline Law Journal Library
- Back to Top
Patent Blogs
There are a number of blogs on the web that keep you update on new developments regarding patents, new patents, etc. The following links are only a small selection.
The Patent Search Blog is regularily updated by Steve van Dulken, a patent expert at the Biritsh Library.
Peter Zura's The 271 Patent Blog includes (beside interesting posts) a long list of patent blogs for more specific areas, such as patent law, infringement, intellectual property in general.
The Patent Librarian's Notebook by Peter White provides news on patents.
Patent Docs, the Biotech & Pharma Patent Law & News Blog concentrates on more specific areas.
- Back to Top
|
Contacts
Patents can be relevant to a wider range of disciplines.
For further information on patents, please contact your liaison librarian.
- Back to Top
|
