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Patents & Technology Transfer: Find Patents

Download Patents

  • Pat2PDF
    U.S Patents in PDF format, 1790 to present.

Patent Offices

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Derwent Innovation Index

Access the Derwent Innovation Index, an important database to find national and international patent documents, as well as patent citation information from the Patents Citation Index. Coverage runs from 1963 to the present.

Canadian Patents

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office hosts the Canadian Patents Database (CIPO), which contains more than 2,000,000 patent documents over the past 75 years.

Search by patent document number
  1. Go to Canadian Patents Database.
  2. Select Number under search options.
By Subject
  1. Select the Basic Search option in the Canadian Patents Database to enter your keywords.
  2. Find a patent that is similar to what you're looking for.
  3. Note the Canadian Patent Classification (CPC) or the International Patent Classification (IPC) number for that patent, e.g. H05B 3/18.
  4. Search the CPC or IPC number using the Canadian Patents Database Advanced Search to find more patents on that subject. Use the "Text Field" drop-down menu to select the appropriate search field.1

 

For more help searching, please see their information guide.

US Patents

Search the United States Patent Databases (USPTO) to find patents (Issue Date, Patent Number, and current US Classification (1790 to 1975; full-text patents from 1976 to present).

By Patent Number
  1. Go to USPTO Patents Database.
  2. Select "Patent Number Search" or "Publication Number Search".
By Subject
  1. Select "Quick Search" in the USPTO Patents Database and enter your keywords in the search box.
  2. Find a patent that is similar to what you're looking for.
  3. Note the U.S. Classification/Subclass numberfor that patent, e.g. 280/728.1.
  4. Search the Class/Subclass numbers in the USPTO Patents Database to find more patents on that subject.
OR ...
  1. Use the Index to the U.S. Patent Classification System to search for common terms or keywords.
  2. Verify the Class/Subclass numbers you found are on target on the  U.S. Patent Classification Search Page.
  3. Search by Class/Subclass numbers in USPTO Patents Database to find more patents on that subject.1

 

Please see their help page on searching patents, for more information.

International Patents

Search the European Patent Office (Espacenet) for free access to more than 70 million patent documents worldwide, containing information about inventions and technical developments from 1836 to today.

By Patent Number

  1. Go to Espacenet and enter the patent number (with or without the country code) in the Smart Search box.
  2. All documents with that number will be listed.

By Subject

  1. Enter your keywords in the "Title or abstract" box on the Espacenet Advanced Search page.
  2. Find a patent that is similar to what you're looking for.
  3. Note the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) number for that patent, e.g. H04J 14/02.
  4. Search the CPC number on the Espacenet Classification Search page to find more patents on that subject.1

Search the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) PatentScope to find 8,151,682 patent documents including 1,963,389 published international patent applications (PCT), 1978 to present.

By Patent Number

  1. Go to PatentScope and select "ID/Number" in the drop-down menu.
  2. Enter the patent number in the search box.
  3. All documents with that number will be listed.

By Subject

  1. Go to PatentScope and select the "Front Page" in the drop-down menu.
  2. Enter your keywords in the search box.
  3. Find a patent that is similar to what you're looking for.
  4. Note the International Patent Classification (IPC) number for that patent, e.g. G06Q 30/02.
  5. Search the IPC number in PatentScope to find more patents on that subject. Select "Int. Classification (IPC)" in the drop-down menu.1


Consult the PatentScope User's Guide for search tips.

Chemical Patents

SciFinder-n provides online access to Chemical Abstracts, patents, the CASREACT chemical reactions database, chemical suppliers, chemical property data, Chemical Abstracts Registry File, and Medline.

  1. Sign-in to SciFinder Scholar. Go to "Explore References".
  2. Select "Patent" in the left-hand menu to search by patent number, assignee name or inventor name.
  3. To search by subject, select "Research Topic" and limit to document type Patent.1

Consult the Scifinder How To Guides to watch tutorials on searching in SciFinder.

Google Patents

Search Google Patents to find patent documents from the USPTO, EPO, and WIPO.

Other Databases

  • The Lens
    • Over 10 million full-text patents documents from US, Europe, Australia and WIPO from 1970's to present. Search over 80 million protein and DNA sequences disclosed in patents.
  • Scopus
    • Scopus is an interdisciplinary bibliographic database that indexes patents and over 17,000 journals in sciences and technology.
    • Patents are displayed separately via a tab at the top of the results list. Patents from the USPTO (1836+, full text 1983+), European Patent Office (1978+, full text 1991+), Japanese Patent Office (machine-translated abstracts 1976+), and World Intellectual Property Organization (full text 1978+) are indexed by its web search engine, Scirus™, which indexes the bibliographic information (1970+), full text (when available), title, authors and assignee, affiliations (e.g., NIH), and patent number, as well as the first published date.

Patents and Technology Transfer Guide adapted from UOttawa Library's Patents guide. Patent database instructions reused with permission from UOttawa Library's patent searching guide.