A patent search is a tool to check the patentability of your invention. You can find out if someone else has already come up with the same idea. And if there is a patent similar to your invention, your patent application won’t be accepted. All the hard work, time, and money you invested in the invention will go to waste. It is important that you do a thorough patent search before proceeding with your invention.

There are many options to pick from when searching for patents. In this article, we will talk about Google Patent Search in detail. Google Patent Search engine is free and has an easy-to-use interface. The Google search engine is quite fast, as opposed to the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s online library. Google Patents also provides information on legal events for patents.
How to search on Google Patents

Google Patents has two search interfaces. A simple search interface and an advanced search interface. As the name suggests, the simple search interface is quite simple to use and very similar to the regular Google search engine.

You may enter your query in the search bar on the main search page, a publication number of a particular patent you’re looking for, or an application number. When I entered “chemical reaction” in the search bar, I got 135,160 results in just 3 seconds. That’s fairly quick.

In the advanced search interface, you can use boolean syntax to search for patents. You can also search for patent publications using Cooperative Patent Classifications (CPCs) that represent ideas instead of keywords.

The AND operator is used to include all words entered in the search bar to be present in search results. The OR operator is used for at least one of the words to be present in search results. When entering terms, it is important to note that all terms are automatically ANDed together, and synonyms are ORed. You can add a synonym by pressing TAB and a new search term by pressing ENTER. You can also use proximity operators NEAR, WITH, SAME, AJD.

On the Advanced Search page and under Search Fields, there’s an option to search for patents using particular fields. You can select before or after the filing date and choose either priority, filing, or publication for the date or date range you entered. There’s an option to search using an inventor and/or assignee. This option helps users look for patent documents by a particular inventor or patents filed by a specific person or company.

The last box on the advanced search page includes the patent office, in case you want to search for patent documents by country. The next option is the language. You can choose to specify status: grant or application, and type: patent or design. The last option is litigation, where you can choose one of the two options: “has related litigation” or “no known litigation”.

Specifying the patent search using the search field options narrows the search results to the most relevant patent publications you are looking for. It helps to make your patent search experience more efficient.

Patent searching is an essential part of your patent process. You can also learn about recent inventions, the development of particular technologies or patents of famous academics. Google Patent search is a user-friendly patent search engine that makes the complex process of patent searching less tedious. It’s free and fast.

If you want to learn about other avenues for patent searching, check our article on Patent Search here.