Free Patent Search

Free Patent Search: this one is paid with tax dollars, so is it really free?

There is a free patent search available to all that have access to the internet. This has been made possible by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

This is on the official website provided by the US government and is paid for by all taxpaying Americans. This offers full text of all documents that have been filed since 1976 and full page images since 1790. This is current with just a one week delay in the posting of new items.

The options on the site are Quick Search. The query has a place for two different terms in a wide variety of fields. You can look up an item by patent number, inventor’s name, inventor’s city, inventor’s state, inventor’s country, issue date, title, and many more. This is for the full text content for items filed after 1976. For items before 1975 the search query is more limited. The options there are issue date, patent number, and current US classification. The patent number for pre-1976 items must be 7 characters in length.

The Advanced Search option has the same restrictions for pre-1976 items as the Quick Search. For items filed after 1976, the queries box in this mode always requires more text to be written than just one word.

Because this database is not intended for the bulk process of orders, the federal government has limited the number of downloads to approximately 1000 patents viewed per day per IP address. If bulk access is needed, it can be purchased by contacting the patent and trademark office near you. The USPTO does not record any information or parameters you have submitted so this information has never been sold to a third party.

Yes, the government did something good with your tax dollars. They provide all with free patent search on their website.