Do-It-Yourself Patent Search

Be sure any words in your search strategy that could occur in the plural form include a "wildcard" character at the end. For example, a CD wall-bracket product might start with this plain-English strategy:

(bracket or clip or holder or support) and (cd or disk or disc or dvd) and (wall or door or vertical surface) and (case or box or jewel case)

That text would need to be modified into the following:

ttl/((bracket$ or clip or clips or holder$ or support$)) and abst/((cd or cds or disk or disks or disc or discs or dvd or dvds) and (wall or walls or door or doors or (vertical and surface$)) and (case or cases or box or boxes or jewel))

• We added ttl/( and ) around the key noun and its synonyms — we'd expect these words in the title of the patent.
• We added abst/( and ) around the rest of the concepts and their synonyms — we'd expect some combination of these in the abstract, the short 150-word summary of the patent.
• Any five-or-more letter word that could be a plural or have an alternate ending gets a $ wildcard. "Holder" could be "holders," "support" could be "supports" or "supporting."
• Any phrase needs brackets with the "and" operator between the words: "vertical surface" becomes "(vertical and surface$)".

Remember, we're just looking for patents that are "out in the open," so you'll see a bunch that aren't relevant and a few that may be.

• Go to uspto.gov and click on "Search" under "Patents."
• Conduct the same search twice — once in the issued patents database and once in the published applications database.
• In the issued patents database, select all years, then type your search strategy into the query field.

Look through the titles of the patents that show up. If any look like they might be relevant, click the patent number or title, then view the images to see the actual patent and drawing figures.

If there are too many titles to review (over 100 or so), remove some of the borderline wildcards and synonyms. If there are too few (fewer than about 10), add wildcards or synonyms.

If you run across a few dead-on hits, there are almost certainly more relevant patents out there — but your search might be over. Don't be discouraged: if your idea is already patented, it means you have an inventive personality and you'll no doubt come up with something else soon.