Now that you’re familiar with the basics of running a patent search, you can begin refining your searches to be more specific. Covered in this article are three ways of doing that:

 

1) Searching patents by name

2) Searching patents by keyword

3) Searching patents by abstract

 

Before diving in, please note that no one of these methods is necessarily better than the others. It depends on the patent you’re searching for. Offered are some basic rules for choosing when to use each method. In fact, in most cases, it’s probably best to run a search using all of these methods – name, keyword, and abstract – just to be sure you aren’t overlooking anything. With that said, let’s begin with searching for patents by name.

 

(As done in all our patent search articles, we’ll be using Google Patent Search for all demonstrations. It can be much easier than using the USPTO’s search tools!)

 

Searching Patents by Name

 

Searching patents by name is most effective when you know or at least have a rough idea of what that name is. We can apply this to an example. Let’s say you believe you have invented the electric guitar. In this case, you can safely run a patent search for the name “electric guitar” and see if anybody else has already patented it, assuming there’s really nothing else it could be called.

 

So, where to begin? First, you need to click the “Advanced Search” link on Google Patent Search.

 

 

Once clicked, you will be taken to the “Advanced Search” screen. This is where you instruct Google to only search using whatever patent name you type in. To keep our example, we demonstrated how one would go about searching for patents with “electric guitar” in the name:

 

 

Google Patent Search refers to the name of the patent as its “title”, but just know that they mean the same thing and type the name you want to search for into the title box as shown above. When you’re done, click the “Google Search” button at the top of the screen to see the search results.

 

 

The search results will not look this way at first; rather, you will get a rather unhelpful-looking list of plain search results that just say “Electric Guitar” and nothing else. To get the view pictured above, you just need to select “Thumbnails” from the “View as” menu. Once you do this, you will see drawings of each patent, and have the ability to see quick information snippets of any one you hover your mouse over. From there, you are free to click on any patent that grabs your attention and get all the available information (abstract, claims, drawings, date issued, inventor name, etc.) by clicking on it.

 

This process can be repeated for any patent name you wish to search for! We will now move on to searching for patents by keyword.

 

Searching Patents by Keyword

 

In a perfect world, we would know the exact name of the patent being searched for and finding it would be as simple as keying in its name. Unfortunately, there are many situations in which this is not possible. For example, what if you invented something that doesn’t have an obvious name – say, a new, more puncture-resistant bicycle tire that uses a special new alloy to stay intact on top of rocks and rough terrain? It would be tough to compress all of that into a pithy, two or three word name. In these cases, you will probably need to search for patents by keyword.

 

Like searching patents by name, your first stop is Google Patent Search’s “Advanced Search” screen. Once there, turn your attention to the top of the page covered in blue. These fields are where you specify which keywords you want Google to look for in the patent database. Keeping our example, we’ll search for the keywords “bicycle tire.”

 

 

Again – click “Google Search” when you’re done, and adjust the “View as” menu on the page that follows to “Thumbnail.” You should then see something like this:

 

 

The results page looks much the same as when you search for patents by name, but with an important difference. Because you searched for keywords and not an exact name, these results contain all patents that have anything to do with bicycle tires. That means you’ll need to spend a bit more time preening through them as you would if you were searching for an exact name. This page, for example, has everything from bicycle tire treads to bicycle tire inflation systems. Keep searching through these until you find the patent you’re looking for. (Of course, if you don’t see a patent for something that you are inventing, this would be preferable to finding it!)

 

When you see a patent that looks relevant or interesting, click on it to learn more.

 

We will now turn our attention to searching by abstract.

 

Searching Patents by Abstract

 

Very simply, a patent’s abstract is an exact description of what the patent literally is; that is, the exact mechanisms, motions, moving parts, or physical things protected by the patent. This is very important information! All patent searches (including by name or keyword) should include reading the abstracts of patents that catch your attention. Only by doing so will you know, for sure, what the patent in question does or does not cover.

 

For example: shown below is the abstract of one of the bicycle tire patents we just looked at in the searching by keyword example.

 

 

When you click on a patent in the search results, you are taken to a page like this one containing more information about it. The opening paragraphs of the abstract can be found here. However, to read the entire thing, you have to click the “Abstract” link atop the page. Doing so will pull up the entire, scanned-in abstract that is on file with the USPTO (shown below.)

 

 

Only by carefully reading the abstract can you know if a particular patent fits the description of what you were searching for. Luckily, this is rather easy, and the process just explained can be repeated for any patent you want to find the abstract for. Simply search for a patent by name or keyword, click on those that look interesting, and click “Abstract” on the page that follows.

 

Best of luck, and be sure to read the other patent searching articles on PatentHelpNow.com!