A 'Patent' is an exclusive negative right given to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention. Patent searching is by and large associated with prior art searching before filing of patent applications. Searching for patent information has many other uses and advantages.

What is Patent Searching?

Searching or mining for patent data is called Patent Searching. The patent data includes published applications and granted patents. Patent data is a very important part of prior art. Prior art is the information made available to the public in any form before a given date. In the digital era, most of the searching is done with the aid of online search engines like Micropatent, Dialog, STN, Questel.Orbit, Dialog and so on. Due to this, data retrieval and information storage have acquired important roles.

Why are patents so important and why is it an asset?

Patent information is thought to constitute about 90% of published technical information. Recent patent application numbers from the United Stated Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) are given below:

• 1 Jan 2003 - 31 Dec 2003: 237089 applications published.


• 1 Jan 2004 - 31 Dec 2004: 268398 applications published.


• 1 Jan 2005 - 31 Dec 2005: 289617 applications published.


• 1 Jan 2006 - 31 Dec 2006: 294538 applications published.


• 1 Jan 2007 - 10 Sept 2007: 208995 applications published.

The steady increase in the number of patent application filing is an indication of the importance of patenting. It is an indication that technological development is being actively patented. Corporate entities are major patentees as they gain a competitive edge and market space by capturing the IP space in a 'crowded area'. Patents are rapidly becoming a crucial and major part of the Intellectual Property assets of commercial as well non-commercial ventures and Universities. Valuation of companies, done for example during a merger or acquisition, now a day includes Intellectual Property assets and patents as a component. Valuable patents also create opportunities for Licensing for royalties.

When do you look for patent information?

The first brush with patent data for a scientist working in a laboratory is when he or she starts work on a project and does the literature survey. These searches are done to find a technical direction and to determine the state of the art.

Typically, prior art searching is done before filing a patent application. This is done for two main reasons: to fulfill the requirement of Duty of Disclose and to mine relevant patent literature, in order to draft strong claims by designing around the prior art.
It is essential to do a review of the active granted patents in a given technology area while conducting a Freedom to Operate (FTO) study. This is a study undertaken to find out if an entity has the freedom to practice a given technology.
Other times to conduct patent searches are during Validity/Invalidity or Opposition studies.

How do you look for patent information?

Most of the known literature is, unfortunately, not available electronically. Also, some of the patent information is published in non-English languages and often not available electronically. Hence, no search can ever be complete. However, it is possible to do a comprehensive online search. There are various search approaches that can be used to search for patent information. Searches can be done by using search terms or keywords. Classification codes can also be used to do Classification searches, for example IPC, USPC, ECLA, Derwent codes. Amalgam or hybrid or combination searches can be done by using a combination of keywords and classification codes. Just as goods or merchandise is the end-product of a plant or factory; patents are the end-product of a research and development enterprise or a laboratory.