Free Patent Search Training Online

By Author: Ramaswami Natarajan
Total Articles: 1
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Free
Patent Search - Free Patent Database online The first step to find out if you invention can be patented
is to conduct a free patent search online in any free patent database online.
How can you do a Free Patent Search to find out if your invention can be
patented?Some of the most popular free patent databases in the world are www.uspto.gov,
http://ep.espacenet.org, www.wipo.int
and www.surfip.gov.sg. We will briefly
discuss in this article how you can conduct a Free Patent Search in USPTO
database. This is the first of the seven articles that we will write to teach
any one to use USPTO website to conduct patent search. USPTO database contains
over 33 million patent documents and is updated every week. The website is
probably the largest patent website in the world. It provides a free patent
search facility for both beginners and advanced users. How can I conduct Patent
Search at USPTO? The answer ...
... to this question is given in a technical way in
many websites. We will try to avoid the jargon and we will try to enable even a
layperson that is not exposed to search databases regularly to do it easily. The
USPTO deals with conducting a Patent Search using its freely searchable patent
database through the Internet. The instructions are given at http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/ptdl/step7.htm
The USPTO stresses the importance on 7 Steps each one to be done one after the
other. The free patent search website
http://www.tmpsearchers.com has
started a patent training course online. We can train you online wherever you
live and the lessons and exercises are sent on a daily basis for three weeks. We
teach a simplified version of methods to our students using Free Patent
Databases. Although a paid database is more user friendly, the official free
databases are updated with regular data and the expensive paid databases take
some time (a short time) to update themselves to be current. Therefore it is
necessary to conduct a search in the official free patent databases online even
after using paid patent databases. A proper training and search strategy for
free databases is therefore very important. One problem is that the USPTO does
not allow you to do the free patent search on patents granted prior to 1976
unless you start the patent search with the class and sub class alone. So you
need to identify the classes and then do a patent research of pre 1976 patents
also. Our method slightly differs from the methodology advised by USPTO and
consists of 9 Steps. 1. Start the search with some relevant keywords When you do
a search using USPTO you will go to the search interface at http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html
Start with the issued patents and start with using some keywords, which are
relevant to your invention. You may use either the quick search method or the
advanced search method. Be sure to study the help pages at http://www.uspto.gov/patft/help/help.htm
and especially the page at http://www.uspto.gov/patft/help/helpadv.htm
if you are going to use the advanced search method. 2. You will get some results
and by using more relevant keywords you can reduce the number of patent titles
to a minimum of about 40. Please keep a record of all the keywords that you
used. 3. Please note all the classifications of cited in these patents. Note both the
US Classification and the International Classification of Patents. This is a
must.4. Repeat the patent search with the Published Applications using http://appft1.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-adv.html
Again record the search queries and the classifications. 5. Now study the
classifications that are repeated time and again in your results and try to
narrow down the invention to some particular classifications. It is not very
difficult to do although it will take some time. You may learn the other four
steps by visiting http://www.tmpsearchers.com/patent-search.html
These steps should give you a very comprehensive picture of the free patent
search that can be done at USPTO. A similar strategy can be followed at other
free patent databases online using the International classifications that you
have identified. Working at the Free
Patent Search website http://www.tmpsearchers.com
we find that we are able to find patents easily when we do patent search this
way, but the key here is to master the keywords to be applied to conduct the
patent search. If you want to know more or learn other advanced techniques of
patent search using the free patent search interface of USPTO patent database,
please contact us
About the Author Ramaswami Natarajan is an Advocate and Patent Attorney in India and he works for the Patent Search firmTmpsearchers . He is writing a series of Articles to help individual inventors to access Free Patent Data online using Free Patent Search Databases.