how to check if patent exists [Deep Research]

Last updated : Aug 1, 2022

Written by : Shawn Imig

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How do you check if an idea is already patented?

Search the USPTO Check out the official website of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and click on the Full Text and Image Database. Search for existing patents, images and patent applications by using words that describe your idea.

How do I look up a patent by number?

If you know the patent number use either Google Patents or the USPTO website to find the patent. Enter the patent number without commas and when using the USPTO website the patent number must be seven numbers in length (add preceding zero's if necessary).

Are patent details public?

Can I obtain a patent and keep my invention secret? No. Patents are granted by patent offices in exchange for a full disclosure of the invention. In general, the details of the invention are then published and made available to the public at large.

How much does a patent search cost?

A patent search cost can be anywhere from $100 to $3,000 depending on the complexity of your invention and covers research into existing patents and patent applications. You can use free online tools to do your own search, but an attorney can help you dig deeper.

Do patents expire?

Patent Expiration Utility patents expire four, eight, and 12 years after issuance of the patent if the maintenance fees are not paid at these points in time. The patent actually expires at 3.5 years, 7.5 years, and 11.5 years, but there is a six-month grace period in which to pay the maintenance fee.

How do I do a patent search on Google?

You can also enter "exact phrases" and metadata restricts assignee:"Google Inc" , inventor:page , and before:2001 . Note: inventor and assignee names must be entered using the prefixes. If you are looking for prior art, check the "Include non-patent literature" box to include results from Google Scholar.

What are the 3 types of patents?

What kind of patent do you need? There are three types of patents - Utility, Design, and Plant. Utility patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or compositions of matters, or any new useful improvement thereof.

Are Google Patents reliable?

For business owners who don't have the budget to hire a firm to perform patent searches for them, Google Patents is a good option. Google Patents' Advanced Search provides a number of impressive filters, especially helpful for searchers who are astute and well-versed in Google's database and features.

What are the 4 types of patents?

Utility patent. This is what most people think of when they think about a patent.
Provisional patent.
Design patent.
Plant patent.

Can a patent last longer than 20 years?

A utility patent can also expire at 4, 8, or 12 years from issuance if the owner does not pay the necessary maintenance fees at 3 Â½, 7 Â½, and 11 Â½ years. A design patent has a term of 15 years from its issue date, and a plant patent has a term of 20 years from its earliest effective filing date.

How do you find out who owns a patent?

Go to the USPTO's online database. Choose the Issued Patents (as opposed to Published Applications) Quick Search. In the right pull-down field menu, select "Assignee Name" if searching for company name or "Inventor Name" if searching for Inventor name.

Can I do a patent search myself?

Conducting a patent search on your own is not that difficult; in fact, many inventors and entrepreneurs conduct their own patent search to save money. However, if you have the budget for it, seeking professional assistance or using patent search software is always an excellent option for a more detailed search result.

Can I write my own patent?

You can file a patent application on behalf of yourself or your co-inventors. Alternatively, you can hire a registered patent agent or attorney to file your application for you. Patent applications require both legal and technical expertise and even small mistakes can dramatically compromise the value of the patent.

Is it difficult to get a patent?

Since patents are legal articles, they can be somewhat difficult to obtain. Patent applications vary from country to country, depending on what you're trying to get a patent for.

Can you sell a patented product?

The U.S. Supreme Court in a recent ruling has opined on the rights of a purchaser to use and resell patented products. The patent system give the patent owner the right to exclude others from making, using, and selling the patented invention, for the life of the patent.

Can I patent something that already exists?

Can you patent an existing product? No, you cannot get a patent on an existing product because it does not meet: the novelty requirement and. the inventorship requirement.

Can I buy a patent?

How to buy patents. It is sometimes possible to buy a patent outright. If you wish to buy a patent, you will have to identify its legal owner and make them an offer. If a business owns the patent, you can negotiate to buy the company and acquire the patent that way.

How do I check a patent online?

Please use Patent Public Search to conduct searches of U.S. patents and published applications. Visit the Patent Public Search website for additional resources. For questions regarding Patent Public Search, please contact the Public Search Facility at psf@uspto.gov .

How do I do a patent search for free?

USPTO. The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office provides free patent searching of its public databases.
Google Patents. A relatively easy database to search which PDF images available. Limited to U.S. patents and U.S. published applications.

Where can I find all patents?

Start at uspto.gov/patft. Next, under the heading Related USPTO Services, click on Tools to Help Searching by Patent Classification. You can now start searching. Patent searches may also be done at google.com/patents and at a number of other free sites.

Did you find this article relevant to what you were looking for? Yes No

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Comment by Gaynelle Bottino

what is up heroes welcome to the channel if you're new to this channel welcome so today I'm going to be talking to you guys about the best way to check if a product is patented or trademark and I'm gonna show you how to do it step-by-step alright so this video is super important it's it's it's super important because you don't want to waste any time trying to look and dissect the product if it's well worth getting into come to find out that it is patented okay I have people that send me product like I have dozens and dozens of people send me products potential products every day and you know I'm like hey did you check if it's patent it and then they're like oh crap I didn't check and then they go to check and it's actually patented and then they just wasted a whole bunch of time so make sure that you guys are checking you guys are going through this step I'm going to show you guys how to do it step by step and before has before I get into it as a disclaimer I'm not an attorney I'm not a lawyer so I am NOT I cannot give you guys legal advice but I can give you guys information I can give you leave you guys in the right direction before you decide to you want to take the extra measure take the extra step and hire someone so yeah I you know you guys may think that I know everything but I don't unfortunately start to break it to you but I just want to save you guys some time that's the reason why I made this channel so I can save you guys time alright so I guess that's it so let's get into this video without further ado and I'll see you guys inside alright guys so let us get into this okay so like I said earlier during the video I am NOT an attorney and I'm not a lawyer even though some of you think I am for some reason alright but let's get into this so let's say for example you found a potential product and you're like oh Lee Kravitz I am using this as an example because I thought was pretty cool okay let's say you found this product okay it's caught it's called a LED flashlights gloves okay we're out of flashlight gloves and you're like holy crap this product is sick it's doing crazy amounts of numbers you're like holy crap before you move on to like see you know like contact suppliers and you know waste your time like my goal like I told you guys is to save you guys time do this we're gonna go look at for gonna look first and we're gonna go look if it's patented okay so we're gonna go on a website called Google patents I'll keep all the links in the description from this video down below so it'll make it a lot easier for and we're going to take the broadest keyword so if the broadest keyword is flashlights gloves then we're going to put that into the search keep the search bar here at Pat the Google patent so you don't want to put fingerless LED gloves for repairing or you know flashlights gloves for repairing working in darkness place you guys get the point get the broadest keyword it's a flashlight glove okay so we're going to do is we're gonna go into Google we're gonna type in a flashlight live alright so you'll see here that we have a couple that are you'll see that like you'll see like oh crap like you know look watch like let's just open up this patent right here and then you'll see that like there let's look we'll go and look at the images first if there's images perfect you guys can open up the images I here the damages so you'll see like okay so that it's a glove with a little flashlight on it and like this is a glove with a flashlight on it too so you know you're like oh crap like it might be patented and then you know we'll go look a little bit more let's go look at this product right here same thing I don't even know if that's a glove or not and then look at here and we'll start to get idea like oh crap you know what there's probably a patent on this product you can tell by just to look in the up these images and then reading a description I mean if you're typing in flashlight glove and then you're seeing things like flashlights gloves as a title and you know I mean like when meeting glove then there's a chance that these products are Pat this product is actually patented okay so make sure that you guys are looking at the titles and you're reading a description and you're looking at the images this is a way to be like oh crap you know this product is probably patented alright so the second way that we're going to look if the product has a trademark is to look on the website called USPTO which stands for the United States Patent and Trademark sort office all right so it's uspto.gov like I said I'll keep the descript in the description from this video down below alright so what we're going to do is we're going to go on the website we're gonna click trade search trademark database right here scroll down and then we're gonna click search trademarks okay and then right here we're going to do is we're going to click the basic word mark search alright and then here we're going to type in our product which was the let me go back flashlight flashlight glove I'll just do flashlight glove alright so we don't see anything there flashlights gloves okay so it's probably going to be the trademark of the actual company itself so it's corolla controller okay so there at see now we have some things to look at here so we'll I mean if we're looking at this product it doesn't seem this looks like a more of like a you know like a biking kind of product or something for outdoors this is more for like baby bedding and looks looks like it's more for you know household and stuff but definitely looking at the trademarks or the USPTO will be a good way to see if the product has started that brand has a trademark on it and if it has a trademark on it they're chances are that there have a patent on the product so this is like another step you guys can take what I'm going to show you guys the best thing that you guys can possibly do like I have people that say like hey Derrick I let's say let's say for example guys that this particular product you searched Google patents and there's absolutely nothing on flashlight gloves and you're like okay dark there's nothing on flashlight gloves and I checked USPTO there's no trademark on the brand and so you're like what do I do now but I'm still a little skeptical so this is a step that I teach all of my students and I make sure everybody does and it's a highly highly recommended is to hire someone an attorney to do a patent search for you okay so I use a guy he's on fiber he he is absolutely amazing he's done all my patent searches for me alright he's done hundreds of people that I not hundreds but I like to exaggerate if you guys can say so he's done dozens of people that I know and he's helped them and he's helped me personally he will deaf people do an in-depth search of your pabts a patent a potential patent on the product you're looking at let him do all the dirty work let him do all the the the searching for you guys he only takes like it literally takes like yeah like a like a day for him to be able to search these for free or to day delivery to pretend to get this information so you guys trust me it's

Thanks for your comment Gaynelle Bottino, have a nice day.
- Shawn Imig, Staff Member

Comment by sithulet

so how do you know if your idea is already patented it's actually a pretty difficult question to answer and kind of more complex than people realize and this video is going to give you all the details on that stick around we are starting right now so for those of you who are new here my name is dylan adams i'm a patent attorney and author of the best-selling book patents demystified which is an insider's guide to protecting ideas and inventions used by inventors entrepreneurs and startups worldwide including at top universities like harvard stanford and mit you might also recognize me from my appearance on cnbc's hit show the profit with marcus lemonis so this channel is all about giving you insider tips on protecting ideas and adventures that i use with my clients every day so be sure to subscribe the channel for more on patents and startups all right let's go ahead and get right into it so when people ask the question is my idea already patented it's important to unpack that question because people are usually asking one or both of a couple of questions and really the analysis to answer these questions are completely different so when people ask is my idea already patented they're asking hey am i going to be prevented from doing something because there's already a patent out on something similar to my idea or invention okay so the first is you know is my in is my idea going to be patentable and that's patentability okay so the other question is is my idea would it infringe on somebody else's patent and those are completely different things patent infringement is completely different than patentability and what i'm going to explain to you is the difference between those two things and then also answer the questions you know you know how do you determine whether something is infringing how do you determine whether something is patentable and be sure to watch until the end because i'm going to give you some free resources that you can use today to look up patent applications issued patents and prior art that's going to help you determine these things so let's start with the first question is is your idea will that infringe on somebody else's patent okay now again that's very different than patentability so we're starting with infringement so infringement requires that you infringe the claims of an issued and enforceable patent so so this is very different than patentability because infringement requires you you to be infringing an actual issued and enforceable patent and how you get an issued enforceable patent a lot of people don't realize that so you have to file a non-provisional patent application that application waits in line for one to three years an examination process goes on between the applicant and the examiner and hopefully the examiner is convinced that what the applicant has is new and non-obvious over the prior art and then will allow the application an issue fee is paid and then the application grants as a patent so you can't infringe a pending patent application and patent applications only last 20 years from the filing date of the non-provisional typically you know plus or minus sometimes but that's sort of a good assumption about 20 years so only once an application has granted as a patent and then as long as the term is is in force that's the only time when you can actually infringe somebody else's patent okay so that's in contrast to patentability patentability that relates to the examination process so that so you file again you file a patent application it waits in line for one to three years and then the examination process goes on with the examiner so if you file your patent application the examiner is going to do a prior art search when the examination process begins and what the examiner is going to determine is whether the claimed invention is new and non-obvious over the prior art that's already out there before you filed your patent application so yes that could be issued patents kind of like with with infringement but prior art is so much broader than just issued patents it can include pending patent applications that have published whether or not those pending patent applications have issued as a patent or whether they're whether they went abandoned and they never issued or and are never going to issue but it can also include any sort of technology disclosure it could be blog posts it could be youtube videos it could be scientific papers it could be product catalogs really any sort of technology disclosure is going to be prior art and that's why it's essential that you understand the difference between patentability which relates to prior art and the patent examination process compared to infringement which relates to a product compared to an issued an enforceable patent so then how do you answer these questions so let's first start off with patentability and again that's relating to prior art that's the determination that the examiner is going to be making whether the invention you have claimed in your patent application is new and non-obvious compared to any sort of prior art which is a broad spectrum of things so to determine patentability the best thing to do is to do a patent or prior art search there are very similar sorts of things a patent search that's just going to be focusing on prior art that is issued patents or patent publications and i would say that's 95 of the time what the rejections are going to be based on during the examination process and that's why some people will call it a a patent search because those are the sometimes the easiest things to do a search on and so a prior search may just focus on patents whereas you can look at a do a general prior art search with you can you can look at product catalogs you can look at blog posts you can look videos you can really open up the world of potential prior to a lot of different things instead of just issued patents or published patent applications so doing a prior art search or a patent search is actually pretty difficult there is a lot of stuff out there and it's not really easy to determine what's relevant and what's not you people think well there's keywords that you can search and yeah that's that's possible in a lot of ways and yeah you can search by classification and search for things that are similar but a lot of times there's a lot of irrelevant stuff in there and you can spend a lot of time uh searching for things that are completely uh irrelevant and it can be hard to find things that are actually on point to what you're actually doing and that's one of the unfortunate things about the patent system people want to say well i want to know if my invention is patentable or not but it's really difficult to figure that out especially for more complex inventions things that have a lot of elements it's really hard to do an effective priority search on things also there's the issue that like i said earlier patents are held in secret by default for 18 months from their their earliest priority date so there's a lot of prior art that's very very relevant that being pending patent applications that you may not even be able to find wh

Thanks sithulet your participation is very much appreciated
- Shawn Imig

About the author

Shawn Imig

I've studied native american religions at Emerson College in Boston and I am an expert in langevin dynamics. I usually feel content. My previous job was radiologic technicians I held this position for 12 years, I love talking about gold prospecting and basketball. Huge fan of Charlie Daniels I practice taekwondo and collect vintage guitars.

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