Patent Search

Patent Searching Tutorial

This Patent Searching Tutorial teaches the basics of patent searching. The specifics were written for patrons of the Patent and Trademark Depository at the Richard W. McKinney Engineering Library, the University of Texas at Austin.

Although some of the instructions given here may be unique to the McKinney Engineering Library and the focus of this tutorial is the Cassis system, the fundamentals of patent searching remain the same for any location.

This tutorial will take you step-by-step through a very simple invention search. You can expect your search to be more difficult and more time consuming than this search.

Links will be provided throughout this tutorial to sites on the World Wide Web with equivalent patent searching capabilities for anyone not using a Patent and Trademark Depository Library. We will include explanations of how these web-based tools might figure into a search strategy, and describe some of the benefits or pitfalls you might encounter while using them. Instructions on the use of these tools are found at the individual sites.

We will start with the premise that we have invented a bib for a hospital patient. In order to conduct a patent search we need to identify the classifications that your invention falls under. To do this, it's important that you learn about how the classification systems works. In order to familiarize yourself with the patent classification system, we suggest you read U.S. Subject of Invention Searching. For more information, you may also want to read the sections on Invention Searching in David Pressman's Patent It Yourself.

When searching the Index to Patent Classifications, remember that inventions are classified by how they work, not by your intended use.