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Online
Database Searches
Computer-retrieval key-word
searches are quick and relatively inexpensive, but are often not
reliable. You may be able to do some no-cost on-line searching yourself,
as there are a number of websites that have patent information available
for searching free of charge. The U.S. Patent Office has a searchable
patent database accessible from its website at http://www.uspto.gov/.
By following the "Search U.S. Patents" link, which contains
basic data about those U.S. patents that have been entered into
the searchable database, a first-impression search result can be
obtained. The Canadian Patent Office also has a similar searchable
on-line facility at http://Patents1.ic.gc.ca/intro-e.html.
If you wish to make your own investigation, also bear in mind that
some libraries keep at least abbreviated records of Canadian patents
that are accessible by the public without charge. However, this
free service is often insufficient to reveal enough information
to enable you to judge whether your invention is likely to be patentable.
Because of their inherent unreliability, we seldom conduct on-line
patentability searches, but may occasionally do so to obtain a quick
first impression.
Commercial on-line databases are also available, and are usually
priced according to the time spent on-line and the number of reports
retrieved. Some can be searched by different fields. For patentability
search purposes, key-word searching is usually done. Such searching
generates rough and ready R20;state-of-the-artR21; reports
that reveal a sampling of recent patents on the subject matching
the key-word selection. A local such service is Patex Research &
Consulting Ltd., an on-line service located at 5230 Patrick St.
Burnaby British Columbia. You can submit your query to Patex, who will then search various patent databases, the price depending on the selection of countries in which searching is conducted. It is a relatively inexpensive
service with a relatively rapid turn-around time. View Patex at http://www.patex.ca,
or telephone (604) 438-5935, or e-mail ron@patex.ca
for information.
Further, if it is known that a patent exists in one country but
not whether counterpart patents exist in other countries, some databases
can be used to identify families of patents in a number of countries.
Some computerised databases can also be used to find information
on who owns a given patent in a given country, when that patent
was granted, and so forth.
Most computerised databases organized for patent searching are usually
limited to information that can be found in granted patents or published
patent applications. They typically do not include other literature.
Further, they usually lack data pertaining to older patents; many
are reliable only for patents up to 20 to 25 years old. Because
reclassification of patents in such databases may not occur, classification-based
searches in such databases may become increasingly unreliable over
time.
But the biggest drawback to computerised searching is simply the
unreliability of key-word searches themselves. It is difficult to
ensure that the key words chosen exhaust every possible synonym.
To take a simple example, patents for heaters may not use the word
"heater" at all, but may alternatively use some other
word or phrase such as "furnace", "radiant element",
" thermal convection apparatus", "incandescent filament
array", or "control apparatus for selectably raising temperature",
to mention only a few possibilities. If the purpose of the search
is to determine the patentability of a given invention, the failure
of a key-word search to uncover a pertinent previously granted patent
can completely undermine the utility of the search.
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