Research Guides: Entrepreneurship: Patents

Using Patents for Ideation

Patents can be a source of ideas and inspiration for new products and devices. Use the resources below to explore the patent landscape!

For more information, please see the Patent Searching page under the PATENTS & IP menu.

Search for Patents

USPTO Patent Public Search
Access: Public
Geography: US
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.

Searchable indexes (search by field)

Espacenet
Access: Public
Geography: US & Global
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
Access: Public
Geography: US & Global
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.

Additional Databases for Engineering Patents

Web of Science: Derwent Innovations Index This link opens in a new window
Access: UCI
Geography: US & Global
Combines unique value-added patent information indexed from various patent issuing authorities for inventions in chemical, electrical, electronic, and mechanical engineering. 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 This link opens in a new window
Access: UCI
Geography: US & Global
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.

Learn this Search: Patent News

The Lens
Access: Public
Geography: US & Global
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
Access: Public
Geography: US
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
Access: Public
Geography: US
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
Access: Public
Geography: US
A “Developer Hub” that improves the discoverability, accessibility, and usability of public patent and trademark data. A shareable, and "social" platform, for anyone to showcase unique ways they're using this data, combining it with other data sets, leveraging the power of the crowd to answer questions about trends in technology and innovation, and provide input on other types of data sets that should be released in the future.
Google Patents Public Datasets
Access: Public
Geography: US & Global
A collection of publicly accessible, connected database tables for empirical analysis of the international patent system.

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