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Home > Research Help > Engineering > engineeringpatents
 | Patents can be a great source of technical information for engineers and scientists. It is particularly important if you are looking for the technical specifications of a particular product that has been patented. Most of the technical information on that patented product can not be found in any other form of literature except in the patent. |
The Eisenhower Library's Government Publications, Maps, and Law (GPML) department on A-Level can assist you in finding all types of government information including patents. | US Patent and Trademark Office | Search for patents and trademarks filed with the Untied States Patent and Trademark Office. You can also check the status of pending patents and trademarks. The site also includes resources for inventors, a list of patent depository libraries, business resources and much more. The database contains patents back to 1790, however full image may not be available for all patents. Check the USPTO database content page for more specifics. You can search the database a number of ways including by patent, inventor name, issue date, claim, abstract, asignee, and more. If you are looking for current patents make sure you search both the issued and the published applications. |
| | Delphion Research | Registration is required at this site, which is a spin off of IBM. It allows registered users some free services such as patent number searching across worldwide organizations. |
| | European Patent Office | Home page provides information on applying for European patents, European patent news, and patent conferences. Search their database. |
| | UK Patent Office | Patents, trademarks, and coypright information for the UK. There's a lot of information on the website, but I could never find a quick answer on how far back their patents are online. |
| | Japanese Patent Office | You need to search the Industrial Property Digital Library which is hidden at the bottom of the page. |
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Patent searching is somewhat of an art form, to do it well you have to be patient, methodical, and creative. It is not like doing a Google search so give yourself time. The University of Texas Library has prepared a tutorial that can help you. The University of Sydney also has a good tuturial Back to top |
