Advanced Patent Searching

John MeierPatent and Trademark Resource

Center LibrarianPennsylvania State University

www.slideshare.net/johnmeier1/advanced-patents

I am not a lawyer

Multiple Types of Patents• Utility patents - functional or structural novelty

Examples: Light bulb or the “comb-over”• Design patents - ornamental designs

Example: An athletic shoe sole design• Plant patents - varieties of plants

Example: Poinsettia plant named “Eckaddis”

How long to get a US patent?

• Application filed to first response by USPTO17 months (on average)• Total time to final decision on a patent26 months (on average)http://www.uspto.gov/dashboards/patents/main.dashxml

Times vary by area of technology

Accelerated examination is available for a fee

How much does it REALLY cost to get a patent?

• Provisional Patent Application $1600-3500• Conversion of Provisional to U.S. Patent Application

$5000-$10,000 in Attorney fees, $900 USPTO fee,possible $2500-$5000 PCT fee = $8400-$15,000

• First Office Action $2500-5000• Second Office Action $2500-5000• Drawing, Issue Fees and Publication $2000-4000• Maintenance Fee – 3.5 years $490• Maintenance Fee - 7.5 years $1240• Maintenance Fee – 11 years $2055Average cost around $20,000 with attorney fees but highly variable

Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT)

Why search patents?

• To find out whether something is patentable• To discover what resources are needed• To learn how things work• To revisit answers that others have found to

your own technological questions.• To identify a research direction taken by a

specific company or inventor• To research the history of inventions and

inventors

Parts of a PatentThe “Front Page”

• Patent Number• Filing Date and Issue Date• Title of the Invention• Inventor or inventors • Assignee - Owner• Classification - IPC, USPC,

CPC• References Cited• Representative Drawings

Parts of a PatentThe Disclosure

• Background of the Invention

• Brief Summary of the Invention

• Detailed Description of the Invention

• Claims– Define the boundary

of legal protection

• Patent Number Searching– Ex: 7294753

• Search by a known field: inventor or assignee– Ex: “Jobs, Steven” or “Apple Inc”

• Classification Searching “A01B 33/08”

Basic Search Tools

• Google Patents – Full text searching U.S. and some international patentshttp://www.google.com/patents

• U.S. PTO Website – limited searching before 1976, information for inventors in the U.S. http://patft.uspto.gov

Advanced Search Tools

• esp@cenet – International patent searchhttp://worldwide.espacenet.com/

• Derwent Innovation Index – PSU only databasehttp://alias.libraries.psu.edu/ERESOURCES/PSU01884

• USPTO Public PAIR – Patent Applications http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair

7-Step U.S. Patent Search Strategy• Classification

1. Brainstorm keywords related to the purpose, use and composition of the invention.

2. Look up the words in the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) to find potential class/subclasses.

3. Review the Classification Definitions to verify the scope of the subclasses and notes

4. Retrieve and review issued patents using the CPC Classification you selected

7-Step U.S. Patent Search Strategy• Patent documents

5. Current U.S. patents - read the front page information on patents retrieved and review drawings and claims

6. Pending U.S. patent applications – read the disclosure and drawings

7. Use additional CPC classifications and cited references on documents from first round to find more patents and non-patent literature

Seven Steps with Google

1. Start at Google Patents www.google.com/patents2. Type in two or three key words from invention3. Find a relevant patent by title and full text4. Select “Classifications” to see the Cooperative

Classification (should be similar to H04M1/15)5. Click through that link to get to the European Patent Office

website Class list and read the description6. Check the box next to the most similar class7. On the left it will show “Selected classifications”, click Find

patents to get a list of pending applications and patents

Resources available at the PTRC

• John Meier meier@psu.edu• Publications of the USPTO– Handouts and help sheets– Fee information (up to date)

• Books on patents and searching– Patent Pending in 24 Hours– Patent it Yourself– Patent Searching made easy

http://psu.libguides.com/patents