The USPTO Patent Search Strategy: Step 6— Expand Your Search

Last step … go beyond the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. And that involves more than just a “Google search” …

Broaden your search with foreign patents, non-patent literature and/or a patent professional’s search.
Check Espacenet, the European Patent Office’s worldwide patent publication database of over 140 million patent publications. Also search books, journals, websites, technical catalogs, and conference proceedings in the applicable field. You may want to hire a registered patent attorney or patent agent to review the search.

If you’re not yet tired of searching, you’ve still got some ground to cover.

Patents exist in other parts of the world, specific to various regions and/or countries, so you’ll want to consider reviewing various databases such as Espacenet, Japan Patent Office, Korean Patent Office, etc.

You’ll want to investigate various research papers and technical documents in applicable journals specific to your invention area.

Review various competitor websites for any documentation — whitepapers, blog articles, videos — that may describe a similar invention.

Google has their own patent search interface with a great prior art search tool (think “forward/backward references” from Step 5), as well as a database with research publications known as Google Scholar.

What you are going after at this point is uncovering any published documentation in any type of format — print, electronic, video — that may describe a similar product.

Not everyone decides to patent their idea, but it doesn’t mean that they have not already unveiled it to the world.

It’s a lengthy but vital process in determining whether or not you are ready or even should apply for a patent.

Best advice is do your homework in making that determination as best you can yourself before financially investing in the application process.

Know that patent agents and attorneys are experts in all things USPTO-related.

There also exist a wealth of independent non-legal searchers and small companies that offer similar searches.

Finally, the USPTO itself offers various “pro se” assistance for independent inventors if you need a bit of help along the way.

Hope you’ve found this useful!