The Sheridan Libraries

Engineering

Explore engineering articles, patents, standards, and other information.

Patents Help

Jim Gillispie - jeg@jhu.edu

JHU Technologies

JHU Research Administration

Includes the university offices which oversee sponsored projects including contracts, grants, and funding opportunities
Provides administrative support and resources for JHU researchers, on issues such as compliance, policies and regulations, funding, forms, training, and technology transfer

JHU Technology Transfer

Helps Hopkins inventors and researchers with licensing, patenting, and technology commercialization

Getting Started

Patent	Protects an invention Three types of patents (from USPTO): 1) "Utility patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof 2) Design patents may be granted to anyone who invents a new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture 3) Plant patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant" Provisional utility or plant patent is a "quick and inexpensive way for inventors to establish a U.S. filing date for their invention, which can be claimed in a later-filed nonprovisional application. A provisional application is automatically abandoned 12 months after its filing date and is not examined."
Utility patents and design patents	Utility -- how it works or how you use it Design -- its appearance, including shape or decoration Difference: "A 'utility patent' protects the way an article is used and works (35 U.S.C. 101), while a 'design patent' protects the way an article looks (35 U.S.C. 171). Both design and utility patents may be obtained on an article if invention resides both in its utility and ornamental appearance. ...Articles of manufacture may possess both functional and ornamental characteristics."
Copyright	Protects an original artistic or literary work
Trademark	A "word, phrase, symbol or design...that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others"

Patent searching requires patience -- give yourself time.

Brief review of basics of patents (U. Minnesota Libraries)
Tutorials on patent searching (listed by Penn State)
Guide to Patent Searching (U. Michigan Library)

Patent Databases

Derwent Innovations Index

START with this database -- their patent TITLES have a lot of extra added detail to help you see exactly what it's about.

Over 14 million national + international patents with links to cited and citing patents, and cited articles
Many links to full-text patent -- box in upper left that says "original" (but no way to restrict search to full-text only)
Covers patents in the fields of chemistry, engineering, and electronics
Patent coverage back to 1963; citations to 1973
Search by topic, inventor, or assignee
Tutorial about how to use Derwent (only 5 1/2 minutes)

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)

Search the full text of patents since Jan 1, 1976
Patents issued from 1790 through 1975 are searchable only by patent number and current U.S. classifications
Full-page images are available back to 1790, and require a TIFF image viewer

Reaxys

Find chemical compounds, chemical reactions, chemical properties, related bibliographic data, and substance data with synthesis planning information (REAXYS replaced Beilstein Crossfire and Gmelin Crossfire)
(1) Do your search, (2) THEN use "document type" (on left) to choose patents, (3) then LIMIT your search
Chemical patent literature and associated properties are also included
You can search by patent number of patent country code

PATENTSCOPE (from WIPO)
"Access to the full text of international Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications on the day of publication, and to patents of participating national and regional patent offices." Search by keywords, names of applicants, IPC, and other ways.
Espacenet
More than 110 million European patent documents worldwide, from 1836+. "User-friendly interface available in almost all European languages." Use either the old ("classic") or new platform.
Japan Patent Office
Patents from Japan. (English and Japanese interfaces.)

Here are places to find patents that have been applied for, but not yet granted or denied.

U.S. PTO patent applications
FreshPatents -- Also U.S. PTO patent applications, on a different platform

General

Google Patents -- After you do a search, use the fields in the left column to narrow your search
PAT2PDF -- Enter a patent number to find and download patents from the USPTO

International

Espacenet -- Free worldwide patent search engine from the European Patent Office. Patents from over 90 countries, from 1836 to the present
Japan Platform for Patent Information (in English)
PatentScope -- From the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO)
United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office

Searching Patents in Derwent Innovations Index

Glossary

DII	Derwent Innovations Index
IPC Codes	International Patent Classification (IPC) Codes There are 8 of these, and those 8 have more divisions, and those divisions have more divisions You can truncate IPC codes, so that you can see a broad range of them -- for example, H03B is H (Electricity), 03 (Basic Electronic Circuitry), B (Generation etc.):
Derwent Class Codes	Use to get all patents in a category of inventions Three broad categories (Engineering, Electrical, and Chemical), which are divided up into 20 smaller categories. They all start with a letter and two numbers; for example, Electrical --> Electric Power Engineering --> starts with X, and X21 is "electric vehicles."
Derwent Manual Codes	Use to find the novel (new; original) aspects or applications of patents
WIPO	World Intellectual Property Organization It controls the IPC codes -- Here's an easy way to explore the whole list of IPC codes

1. Search for something. You can use TOPIC or TITLE; if you get too many hits from TOPIC, switch to TITLE. always notice the years. Add a row if you want to.

2. Or, you can start your search by looking at lists for Inventor, IPC codes, Class codes, Manual codes, or Assignee. Use "select from list" on the left.

3. If you have too many results, add words to the TITLE. Change the dates if you want to.

4. Your search words are highlighted. Codes for IPC, classes, and manual are on the bottom left.

5. Most of these have IPC codes that start with the same thing. So let's click BACK, and put that beginning of that popular IPC code onto another line, with an asterisk -- this will get all of the IPC codes that *start* with this.
-- Note that this strategy will get you MORE results.
-- Also, in every record, you can click on the IPC codes and see all of them.

6. Derwent Class Codes are divided into 20 broad subject areas.

7. Again, the big advantage of using Derwent over the other patent databases and tools is that these titles have been expanded so that you know exactly what the patent is about.

However, you can also combine USPTO and Google Patents to get decent results -- don't use Google Patents alone because it's incomplete, has scanning errors, and doesn't include the most recent patents.

Last Updated: Apr 18, 2022 7:23 PM
URL: https://guides.library.jhu.edu/engineering
Print Page

Subjects: Computer Science and Technology, Engineering