Patents

Patent and Trademark Depository Libraries (PTRC)

• Fogler Library, University of Maine.
• PTRC Libraries in all 50 states.
• Patent and Trademark Resource Center Program Office. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
• Patent and Trademark Depository Library Association.

Disclaimer: PTRCs are neither required nor encouraged to conduct patent and trademark searches for their patrons as that activity may be interpreted as rendering a judgment or opinion. PTRCs are required to instruct patrons in the use of the search tools available at the PTRCs for patrons conducting their own patent and trademark searches.

U.S. and international patent offices and patent databases on the internet

• U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Inventors Assistance Center.
• U.S. Patent Database. Full page image of patents from 1790 to the present. Keyword searching available for only 1976 to present. Must also use the Classification System. USPTO News. Archive of news announcements.  Fee schedule for 2006.
• Australian Patents (AusPat). Provided by the Australian Intellectual Property Office.
• British Library Patents at the British Library. Links to databases, web sites, and patent and trademark information worldwide. UK Patent Office. ESP@cenet database.
• Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO). Canadian patent, trademark and copyright information.
• DEPATISnet. German Patent and Trademark Office. Includes many foreign patents. Offers 5 search modes including Assisted Search. Through this method you can request assistance from the experts at the Patent Information Center and receive via email suggested search strategies.
• European Patent Office. Homepage. Access their database (Esp@cenet) to search U.S., European, Japanese, and World Intellectual Property Organizationpatents. Please note that U.S. patents are searchable by title and inventor back to 1920. Choose the link to the Worldwide 30 Million Documents. They also provide a very detailed listing of patent internet resources. Patent Information on the Internet. Search the European Classification System.
• Google Patent Search. Over seven million U.S. patents and patent applications available in full-text and pdf formats. Keyword searchable by patent number, title, inventor, assignee, or classification.
• Patent Lens. Free full-text patent search engine. Indexes U.S., WIPO, European and Australian issued patents and applications. Unique chemical structure and protein (DNA, RNA) sequence search interfaces available.
• SurfIP - The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore. Provides access to world-wide patent databases.
• World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). PatentScope Full Text Database. Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) full-text, bibliographic data and image coverage from 1978 to present, over 1.4 million international patent applications indexed. International Patent Classification system. List of searchable databases hosted by other patent offices.

Specialized Patent Databases

• DNA Patent Database (DPD). A resource for policy makers and members of the general public interested in fields like genomics, genetics and biotechnology, the DNA Patent Database (DPD) contains a collection of DNA-based patents and patent applications issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and makes the full-text of such patents and applications available to users at no cost.

Internet sites providing PDF versions of U.S. Patents

• Free Patents Online. Provides access to U.S. patents from number 4,000,000 to the present.
• Patent Retriever. Provides free PDFs of US, EPO and PCT patents and applications.
• PatentStorm. Provides free PDFs of U.S. patents from 1976-present.
• Pat2pdf.org. Provides free PDFs of US patents from 1838 to present.
• SumoBrain. Full-text searching of US and EP documents, PCT applications and Japanese patent abstracts. Users can save, organize, annotate and share documents in workfiles. Patents in workfiles can be merged, moved and exported in CSV or Excel formats. SumoBrain also allows users to save searches and create search alerts.
• WikiPatents. Database of patents open for public comment on the internet, allows PDF downloading of patents, free patent translation into multiple languages, and additional information and resources. 

Exporting Patent Information to EndNote and Excel

• Patent Tools sponsored by Greenberg Traurig. Offers a variety of export tools, both free and fee based, for exporting to Excel, HTML, and others. Other tools included allow for generating charts, tables, claim trees, and automated summaries.
• SumoBrain. Full-text searching of US and EP documents, PCT applications and Japanese patent abstracts. Users can save, organize, annotate and share documents in workfiles. Patents in workfiles can be merged, moved and exported in CSV or Excel formats. SumoBrain also allows users to save searches and create search alerts.

U.S. Patents: Prior Art Searching Tutorial

How to Conduct a Preliminary Patent Search. Thirty-six minute patent searching tutorial.

Additional self-help patent searching tools:

• The value of a patent search
• PTRC 7-Step Strategy for Patent Searching
• Patent searching on the Internet. Keyword Searching & Classification System
• Obtaining copies of U.S. patents
• Searching for pre-1976 patents
• Websites and library resources on historical patents
• Maine Statewide databases and free Internet databases for prior art searching

Maine Statewide Databases or Free Internet Databases:  find journal articles, technical reports, standards, etc.

These databases are useful for checking for journal articles, technical reports, and news announcements about similar products and technology. If an idea has been published anywhere, it cannot be granted a patent.

• Academic Search Complete. Provides full text for over 3,200 scholarly publications.
• AGRICOLA. Produced by the National Agricultural Library. Resources encompassing all aspects of agriculture and allied disciplines, including animal and veterinary sciences, plant sciences, forestry, etc.
• AGRIS. Sponsored by the United Nations. Food and Agriculture Organization. 1965 to present.
• Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts.
• ASCE Civil Engineering Database (CEDB). ASCE's CEDB covers bibliographic records of ASCE documents published back to 1958, including journals, conference proceedings, books, standards, manuals, magazines, and newsletters. Some full-text available.
• Business Source Complete. Provides full text for over 2500 business journals.
• Citeseer.com. Scientific Literature Digital Library. NEC Corp. Indexes Postscript and PDF research articles on the Web. Has citation searching component.
• CogPrints. CogPrints is an electronic archive for papers in many areas of Computer Science. Full text of the cited references is available.
• Collection of Computer Science Bibliographies. Some links to the online fulltext.
• Computing Research Respository (CoRR). Preprints in computer science. Mechanisms for searching, downloading and submitting preprints are provided.
• Cooperative Forestry Research Unit Publications Database.
• DOE Information Bridge. FULL TEXT DATABASE. Full-text reports for 1995 to present contracted by the U.S. Dept. of Energy.
• Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) Scientific and Technical Information Network. PARTIAL FULL TEXT DATABASE.  Access to all unclassified, unlimited citations to documents added from late December 1974 to present, many from 1998 to present in full text.
• E-Print Network. Maintained by the Dept. of Energy. Allows simultaneous searching of a variety of preprint servers.
• Electric Power Research Institute. (EPRI).
• Energy Citations Database. U.S. Department of Energy database. Coverage is 1948 to present.
• Energy Portal Search. Provides access to government and research society databases and evaluated web sites.
• Entrez: the life sciences search engine. National Library of Medicine sponsored databases including protein and nucleotide databases and PubMed.
• Fire Research Information Services (FRIS). FIREDOC database. Made available by the Building and Fire Research Laboratory BFRL), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). 
• Fossil Energy R & D Project Database. U.S. Dept. of Energy.
• Google Scholar. Beta version, under construction. Indexes scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports. Google Scholar includes articles from a variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities. They rank results based on their relevance criteria.
• Ingenta (Formerly UnCover). Coverage is 1988 - Present. Indexes over 28,000 journals in all disciplines.
• MasterFILE Premier. Provides full text for over 1,830 general reference, business, consumer health, general science. Full text extends back to January, 1990. Indexing and abstracts is available for an additional 1,000 journals.
• MEDLINE. Index produced by the National Library of Medicine. Includes over 3,600 journals covering all areas of clinical and experimental medicine, nursing, dentistry and health administration. Updated weekly. Coverage is 1947 to present.
• National Environmental Publications Internet Site (NEPIS). Index to over 9,500 full-text EPA reports.
• National Technical Information Service (NTIS) Database. Contains over 2.0 million bibliographic records to research reports, computer products, software, video cassettes, audio cassettes and more from the latest research sponsored by the United States and select foreign governments. The complete electronic file dates back to 1964. Most records include abstracts. Full text to research reports may be purchased from NTIS using the links in the bibliographic records.
• Networked Computer Science Technical Reference Library (NCSTRL). Computer science technical reports from over 100 institutions worldwide. Over 20,000 reports are available in full text.
• New York Times Article Archive. 1851 - present. Full text of articles can be purchased online or use the microfilm collection in Fogler Library.
• NASA Technical Report Server (NTRS). This database collects, archives, and disseminates aerospace information produced by NASA and other relevant worldwide research.
• OSHLINE with NIOSHTIC Database. Occupational safety and health resources.
• Recent Advances in Manufacturing. Covers over 500 journals.
• Regional Business News.
• Science Accelerator, Office of Scientific and Technical Information, U.S. Department of Energy. Search collections of DOE research results, project descriptions, and accomplishments. These collections enable you to find out about ongoing research projects, explore significant DOE discoveries, learn about DOE Nobel Prize Winners, access and search scientific e-prints, locate science conference papers and proceedings, patents, and more.
• Science.gov 5.0. A free, integrated single-search gateway to reliable science and technology information from 17 organizations within 13 federal science agencies - access to over 200 million pages of scientific information.
• Scirus. produced by Elsevier. Use their advanced search which provides many options for full text searching across a variety of databases.  
• Searchable Physics Information Notices (SPIN). A bibliographic database published by the American Institute of Physics. It is updated every 2 weeks with coverage of all AIP journals and proceedings. Coverage also includes journals from other societies including the Electrochemical Society, Russian Academy of Sciences, etc.
• TRID: the TIRS & ITRD Database. TRID is the world's largest and most comprehensive bibliographic resource on transportation research information. It is produced and maintained by the Transportation Research Board of the US National Academies with sponsorship by State Departments of Transportation, the various administrations at the U.S. Department of Transportation, and other sponsors of TRB's core technical activities. ITRD is produced by ITRD member organizations under the sponsorship of Joint Transport Research Centre (collectively JTRC) of the International Transport Forum and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and ITRD. TRID covers all modes and disciplines of transportation and contains more than 900,000 records of published research. Over 64,000 records contain links to full-text documents. A Transportation Research Thesaurus is available to download and provide guidance on searching TRID.
• U.S. Dept. of Energy. Scientific and Technical Information.
• U.S. EPA Web Search. Provides advanced searching of the EPA web site.
• U.S. Forest Service. Publications database.

• American Intellectual Property Law Association. (AIPLA).
• Center for Entrepreneurship and Small Business. University of Southern Maine. School of Business.
• Inventors' Association of New England.
• Maine Patent Program - see schedule for Maine Inventors Forum.
• National Association of Patent Practitioners. (NAPP).
• National Collegiate Inventors & Innovators Alliance. (NCIIA).
• National Congress of Inventor Organizations. (NCIO).
• National Inventors Hall of Fame. Workshop on how to patent.
• Patent Information Users Group. (PIUG).
• United Inventors Association (UIA).
• World Intellectual Property Organization. (WIPO)

Patent Guides

• General Information Concerning Patents. Learn about patents and the patenting process from this fact-packed guide published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
• Entrepreneur Network. See the For Inventors Section.
• FindLaw for Legal Professionals. Good sections on small business and intellectual property law.
• From Patent to Profit.
• How to Protect and Benefit from your Ideas. by the AIPLA
• Independent Inventors Resources. from the USPTO.
• Intellogist. Free website that aims to help patent searchers locate sources of patent information, evaluate public and commercial patent search systems and exchange best practices in prior art searching; useful to both novice and experienced patent searchers.
• Inventors' Alliance. San Francisco.  Marketing and licensing resources.
• Inventors Digest Online.
• Inventors Handbook. Published by the Lemelson - MIT Program.
• Ironman Inventing. Articles on the invention process by Andy Gibbs.
• Kuester Law: The Technology Law Resource.
• Legal Information Institute. Provided by the Cornell University Law School.
• MegaLaw.Com Patents Page.
• National Inventor Fraud Center. Avoid invention fraud. 
• PatentCafe.com.
• U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Patents Guidance, Tools and Manuals.
• Workshop on how to patent.
• Patent searching on the Internet. Keyword Searching & Classification System
• WIPO guide to using patent information. Geneva: World Intellectual Property Organization, 2009. Explains what a patent is, the information contained in a patent document, where patent information can be found, and basic search strategies.

Attorneys Registered with the USPTO

• Directory of attorneys registered with the USPTO.
• Maine Intellectual Property Lawyers. Law Firm directory from Martindale.
• Maine State Bar Association at 1-800-860-1460 or 1-207-622-1460.
• Patent Buddy. Provides data on registered patent attorneys and their employment histories. Search for an attorney and see what patents they have worked on.
• Patents.com. Conduct a patent search, file a patent application, find a patent attorney, or search available technology through the Patent Exchange; create a profile, interact with members, post articles, and more.

Invention Promotion Firms

• U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Consumer Alert. Spotting Sweet-Sounding Promises of Fraudulent Invention Promotion Firms. Facts for Consumers. Invention Promotion Firms.
• U.S. Patent Office. Independent Inventors.   Scam Prevention. Includes 10 questions to ask a promotion firm - get answers in writing.  Invention Promotors. Includes published complaints.
• Better Business Bureau.
• Invent Resources. (IRI). Invention promotion firm located in Massachusetts.  
• National Congress of Inventor Organizations. Scambusters.
• Office of the Maine Attorney General. Consumer Protection.
• United Inventors Association (UIA). Non-profit organization dedicated to inventor education and support. UIA's Mission is to provide reliable information to inventors, as well as certification to groups and service providers who comply with rigorous professional and ethical standards.

Directories of Products and Companies: Search to see if a similar product is already being sold.

• Building Materials by McGraw-Hill Sweet's. Construction industry marketplace that lists close to 60,000 products.
• Electronic Orange Book. Find patent and other useful information on pharmaceutical drugs. Search by patent number, company name, active ingredient or proprietary drug name. Database provided by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
• eMolecule. Find Suppliers and Information for over 8 Million Unique Chemicals.
• GlobalSpec.com.
• Hoover's Online.The business information authority.
• ManufacuringNet.The manufacturing marketplace
• MatchProduct. An online business-to-business marketplace that offers companies of all sizes an easy and convenient way to sell products or find new product opportunities. Includes a searchable product directory.
• ThomasNet Register.Lists over 173,000 U.S. and Canadian manufacturers.
• Thomas Global Register Europe. European industrial buying guide.
• Yahoo Business directories and yellow pages.

Small Business Resources 

• Bizoffice. Small and home-based business resources.
• BUZGate.org. Business Utility Zone Gateway. Provides access to a multitude of Maine resources for small businesses. Chose "Maine" from the state listing.
• Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance. Searchable database of federal grant programs.
• Center for Entrepreneurship and Small Business. University of Southern Maine. School of Business.
• Coastal Enterprises Inc. (CEI)
• Entrepreneur Magazine.
• Export.gov. U.S. Government export information. Expand your business outside our borders.
• Finance Authority of Maine.  
• InventorSpot. Provides daily articles about the latest inventions, innovations and interesting ideas from around the world. Includes information for inventors by experienced inventors and other experts, an active invention advice forum and inventor community, and tools for inventors such as a free Invention Gallery where inventors can promote their inventions.
• Launch Momentum. "Propel your technology to market." Maine firm offering services to the independent inventor or small company.  
• Maine Business Resource Guide. Augusta, Me. : Maine Dept. of Economic and Community Development, 2006.
• Maine Business Works. This web site brings together business development resources for Maine.
• Maine Department of Economic and Community Development.
• Maine Investment Exchange.
• Maine Manufacturing Extension Partnership.
• Maine Patent Program.
• Maine Technology Institute.
• Maine's Applied Technology Development Centers.
• Morebusiness.com.
• National Association of Small Business Investment Companies (NASBIC). America's Small Business Partners.
• Penquis Community Action Program. Penquis CAP. Economic Development Programs.
• SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) Association. Maine Offices
• Small Business Development Centers, Regional Offices - Maine.
• Small Enterprise Growth Fund. Maine's Venture Capital Fund. 
• U.S. Department of Defense. Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer. Fast Track. Provides funding directly to small technology companies.
• U.S. Small Business Administration. Provides information on starting a business, writing a business plan and securing financing. Many online legal and business resources are provided. They also sponsor the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR). Program which provides funding to entrepreneurs working on innovations.  Maine District Office.   
• Women's Business Center of Maine.

Inventor and Entrepreneur Education Opportunities in Maine

• Maine Business Works. Workshops, Seminars and Events.
• Maine Patent Program.
• MaineToday.com.
• Maine Technology Institute. Calendar.
• Maine's Applied Technology Development Centers. Calendar.

Trade Shows and Inventors Congresses See TSSN.com: The Ultimate Trade Show Resource. Searchable index of trade shows by state, city and industry.  

• Invention and New Product Exposition (INPEX). America's largest annual invention trade show.
• Inventors' Digest. Trade Shows and Workshops.
• Minnesota Inventors Congress. Expo 2006 - June 9-11.
• New England Products Trade Show (NEPTS): March 18-20, 2006, Portland Sports Center, Portland, Maine. Best of New England - business to business show.
• TradeShow Handbook. A Comprehensive online resource guide for the trade show industry. Find detailed information, guides, tutorials and directories for trade shows, exhibitions, public events and conferences.

Internet Directories

• British Library. Patents page.
• Lemelson - MIT Program: Links and Resources.

Raymond H. Fogler Library University of Maine Orono, ME 04469 207-581-1661

Updated: 02/05/2013 by Martin Wallace