U.S. Patent and Trademark Searching on the Web

"A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the Patent and Trademark Office." ... "A trademark is a word, name, symbol or device which is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others. A servicemark is the same as a trademark except that it identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than a product." (USPTO)

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (http://www.uspto.gov) provides no-cost searching of Issued Patents, Patent Applications, and Trademarks:

• Patents issued between 1790 and 1975 may be searched by Patent Number and Current US Classification (the classification code assigneed to the patent to indicate its subject matter).
• You may search patents issued since 1976 using any of the sections (fields) within the full-text documents.
• Patent Applications are available since March 15, 2001.
• The Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) allows you to search trademarks. Active trademarks and trademark applications, as well as inactive ones since 1984, are included.

Guides to Patent Searching
General Information Concerning Patents - see especially "What is a Patent?"
The 7-step strategy - the search process described is complex, recommended for professional patent searchers
How do I use the U.S. Patent Classification Site? - explains searching by Classification numbers
Tips on Fielded Searching - probably the most useful guide for the novice patent searcher, since searching within fields (sections) is easy to understand and results in precise, although not comprehensive, searches

Classification tools to help in Patent Searching
Manual of Classification - guide to the classification schedule used to classify patents and patent applications; searchable by class, subclass, and keyword
USPC Index - browsable index to the entire US Patent Classification

For a robust search engine to the USPC Index, see http://cxp.paterra.com.

Accessing and Printing Patent Images
Download a free viewer (Windows: AlternaTIFF or InterneTIFF; Macintosh: QuickTime). Note: QuickTime does not allow printing of patent images. You will have to print page by page in AlternaTIFF and InterneTIFF.

To download a pdf document so that you don't have to print page by page, search for the patent in http://www.freepatentsonline.com.

Guides to Trademark Searching
Basic Facts about Trademarks - see "What is a Trademark or Servicemark?"
Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) Help - see "New User Form Searching" (To get to TESS, click on "Search" under "Trademarks" on http://www.uspto.gov.

Classification Tools to help in Trademark Searching
Trademark Acceptable Identification of Goods and Services Manual - guide to the classification of trademarks; searchable and browsable
USPTO Design Search Code Manual - guide to classification of figurative elements of trademarks; keyword searching, table of contents, alphabetical index, browsable dictionary.