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Engineering:
Patents
General Information Concerning Patents
This online brochure was prepared by USPTO. It provides FAQ for US patent information.
This site is extremely useful for a new user to get familiar with patent.
USPTO Web Patent Database
A freely searchable database (full-text since 1976, full-page images since 1790). 1790-1976 is only
searchable by patent numbers and current US Classifications. Images are available as tiff files, one
page at a time.
European Patent Office Home Page
From this site you can get access to the European Patent Office's search engine:
esp@cenet.
It is a free Internet service from the European Patent Organization.
You can use it to search 45 million patent documents from all over the world from 1836 to today.
World Intellectual Property Organization PCT Database
Search or browse World Patent bibliographic data, abstract and drawing of published PCT applications.
Abstracts in English, with full patent image in the language of the inventor's country.
Japanese Patent Databases
One can conduct search in English in the following areas: FI/F-term Search, Patent Abstracts of
Japan, Patent Map Guidance and Laws and Guidelines.
Google Patent Search
Google Patent Search covers the entire collection of patents made available by the
USPTO—from patents issued in the 1790s through those issued in the middle of 2006.
Currently it does not include patent applications, international patents, or U.S.
patents issued over the last few months. One can either do a general search or use the
Advanced Patent Search feature.
