Patent searching using the internet

Abstract

The Web site of the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) makes available access to two patent databases, in addition to information on USPTO and patents generally, and to links to other Web sites related with patents. One of the databases, AIDS is devoted to searches on US, Japanese, European and some other countries' patents on the disease. The other, PatBib provides access to bibliographic data back to January 1976 of almost all US patents. Both databases are linked to the Web pages of the complete and detailed patent classification system of the USA. The searching of these databases is presented, and a sample search is shown in the PatBib database.