remember that one of the requirements for patentability is novelty. If your invention has been previously reported or publicly manufactured or sold anywhere in the world, at any time, the patent office should refuse to grat the patent. Since patent applications are expensive, you should thoroughly search the patent literature (and non-patent literature as well) to ensure that ther is no prior art that would disquality your invention for patenting.
Ptents can be a valuable source of three types of information:
Tips to Remember in Searching Patents:
Searching patents by keywords alone is tricky. First, since patents are issued in dozens of different languages, searching terms in any single language, even English, runs the tisk of missing important patents. Second, even within a given language, the terminology of patents can vary widely. The descriptions used are often writen by lawyers, not by scientists or engineers.
So, to get around these problems, systems of patent classification codes have been devised to provide standard descriptors of patent subjects. The most important classifcation codes are:
The IPC is used by virtually all patent issuing organizations. It divides technology fields into eight sections (A-H) with approximately 75,000 subdivisions, each represented by a language independent symbol consisting of Latin alphabet characters and Arabic numerals. The IPC consists of several hierarchical levels. Subgroup level is indicated by a number of dots: a higher number of dots represents a lower subgroup level. The eight broad IPC classes are:
Each is then subdivided. For example:
You can find a genreal description of the IPC at the WIPO International Patent Classification site and the browsable and searchable guide to IPCs ..
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, (USPTO) in collaboration withe the European Patent Officd (EPO), developed a new patent classification system. In 2013, the USPTO replaced its earlier United States Patent Classification (USPC) with the CPC. While the USPTO has updated their own records with the new codes, you may still find some source of older patents which only have the USPC.
The CPC codes frequently closely resemble the IPC codes. You can find the USPTOs tools for locating both CPC and USPC codes at their Classification Resources site.
The classification codes are designed for use by patent information professionals, who wish to do comprehensive prior art searches of the patent literture. For scientists, engineers and others who may wish to dive deepr into the patent leterature than just keyword searching, they best way to find and use classification codes is to do an initial search using keywords. If you find one or more patents that match your interests, look at the IPCs (and/or cpCs or USPCs) on the front page of the patent. Check to see what those codes mean at the WIPO or USPTO sites above. You can then use the codes that seem to fit your needs as alternative search terms to potentially find more patents like those in your starting set.