Research Guides: ENGR 190W (2025 Combined): Patents

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USPTO Patent Public Search
U.S. only coverage
The Patent Public Search tool is a new web-based patent search application that will replace legacy search tools PatFT and AppFT. Patent Public Search has two user selectable modern interfaces that provide enhanced access to prior art.

Quick Reference Guides:

Espacenet
Global coverage
Espacenet is the largest public patent database on the internet. It contains 110 million patent documents from more than 90+ countries including Canada and the U.S or a total of 100+ patent authorities, plus 2 million records for non-patent literature cited in EPO search reports. Espacenet is produced by the European Patent Office (EPO).
Google Patents
Global coverage
Google Patents includes over 120 million patent publications from 100+ patent offices around the world, as well as many more technical documents and books indexed in Google Scholar and Google Books, and documents from the Prior Art Archive. See instructions for searching Google Patents.

Web of Science: Derwent Innovations Index
Combines unique value-added patent information indexed from various patent issuing authorities. Ability to search across clearly written patent titles and abstracts that highlight the novelty, use, advantage, and claims of each invention.

Monitor an invention’s influence by using the “Cited Patent Search” tool to find patents that cite a given patent or patents.

Materials Science & Engineering Collection
Includes the renowned METADEX, Copper and Polymer Library databases and provides full-text titles from around the world, including scholarly journals, trade and industry journals, magazines, technical reports, conference proceedings and government publications.

The Lens
Global coverage
An initiative of Cambia (an independent non-profit institute), the Lens allows users to discover, analyze, and map global innovation knowledge. Its search system allows for use of advanced Boolean functions, structured search, biological search, and classification search options to find the most relevant and important patents and scholarly works. Analysis tools include mapping the influence of scholarship and identifying experts and collaborators.

To find US companies who own the most patents: Lens.org >> Patents [tab] >> Owners [left menu]
To find the top companies applying for the most patents: Lens.org >> Patents [tab] >> Applicants [left menu]

PatentsView
U.S. only coverage
A patent data visualization and analysis platform that increases the value, utility, and transparency of U.S. patent data. Includes an API tool and bulk data downloads.
USPTO Research Datasets
U.S. only coverage
To advance research on matters relevant to intellectual property, entrepreneurship, and innovation, the Office of the Chief Economist (OCE) releases datasets to facilitate economic research on patents and trademarks.
USPTO Open Data Portal
U.S. only coverage
Publicly available data that is structured in a way that enables the data to be fully discoverable and usable by end users. It can be freely used, reused and redistributed by anyone.
Google Patents Public Datasets
Global coverage
A collection of publicly accessible, connected database tables for empirical analysis of the international patent system.