The USPTO Patent Search Strategy: Step 2 — Keyword Searching
You’ve compiled your list of terms, or keywords, from Step 1, and now you are ready to venture into the realm of actual searching for patents (and patent applications) which disclose and describe inventions that may be similar to your own.
Step 2 of the USPTO Patent Search Strategy is as follows:
Conduct a keyword search using Patent Public Search.
You can begin with a broad search for your main concept, and then narrow the search results by adding additional features of your invention. Review the front pages of patents and published patent applications, eliminating those that are irrelevant. Guidance on how to search is available in our Quick Reference Guides.
Patent Public Search. Okay. I’m ready. What’s that?
Patent Public Search is the public interface via the USPTO website that allows searchable access to the same archival database patent examiners use to access all available filed patent applications and granted patents.
Nice, huh?
And within this interface there are two options available: a Basic Search and an Advanced Search.
A Basic search is predominantly used when you have specific information available and a pretty good idea already of an exact document or documents you are looking for. Specific information such as a patent number, an assignee, an inventor, or even the name of an attorney.
As we are just beginning our search and want to undertake a thorough investigation of what patents are pending or may have previously been granted, we are going select the Advanced Search option.
Through this we are looking for the breadth of possible matches similar to our invention.
When navigating to the Advanced Search section, pause for a moment. It looks like a lot at first glance, but just take in each section of the three main sections one at a time.
My recommendation is to first review the USPTO Workspace Layout reference guides to familiarize yourself with each panel and their respective functionalities.
After familiarizing yourself with the various documentation you are going to, for this stage, make the Search Overview document your best friend.
This is where you incorporate those keywords you brainstormed from Step 1 for the invention “MyPhone2024” into investigative use.
There are many ways to approach this, so I’ll just get you started on how a typical patent examiner may approach searching for an invention similar to the MyPhone2024.
Inventor search: If you know of the names of others that have invented similar products, search for other patents by inventor name:
last_name.in.
Assignee search: Search for patents by other companies that you know of with similar products on the market or being developed:
company_name.as.
Title search: Consider a patent title search to see what immediate results maybe available using specific language:
phone.ti.
You’ll notice that you can search other specific sections of patents such as background, abstract, detailed description, and claims. However, these can be extremely limiting, so best to just include a general keyword search moving forward which will search all parts of a patent.
Pause for another moment … because this is where the bulk of your searching is going to occur.
For those of you familiar with programming and boolean searching, coming up with various search approaches should not be so challenging.
For those of you who aren’t, Figures 5–7 under the Search Queries section are going to be your most used tools.
Some examples using various keywords from Step 1’s brainstorming could be:
(cellphone) AND (cell ADJ phone)
[this searches for both “cellphone” and “cell phone”]
(communicat$ NEAR2 device)
[this searches for “communicator device”, “communication device”, “device for communicating”, etc…]
(display AND gps AND camera) SAME (phone OR device OR communicator)
[this searches for the terms “display”, “gps”, and “camera” within the same paragraph of any of the terms “phone”, “device”, or “communicator”]
You can also combine searches to, for example, only return Apple patents which include description of a touchscreen and a heart rate monitor:
The Apple patent search is pretty straight-forward, as Apple is the assignee.
Inclusion of a touchscreen would necessitate at least the word “touch” but not necessarily the word “screen”, as “display” or “interface” may be viable alternatives. Additionally, we would want to search for both “touchscreen” and “touch screen” where the “*” takes this into account.
We could have also used “heart*” as well, but I wanted to specifically only find the terms “heartrate” or “heart rate”.
In order to cover all uses of the root word “monitor”, the “$3” is a good choice here in uncovering “monitor”, “monitoring”, and “monitored”.
Finally, the “WITH” keeps the search constrained to a single sentence, retrieving disclosures of both e.g. “…heart rate monitor” and “…a device which undertakes monitoring of a variable and sustained signal denoting a heartrate”.
Phew!
Once more, take a breath. The more you practice searching the easier it will become. The more keywords you include and the more creative in approaching your searches, the more relevant results you will return.
Exploring these results brings us to the next step in the USPTO Search Strategy.
** The USPTO includes a half-hour long introduction to patent searching that you may find helpful to get you started as well. **
End note:
What about Google Patents? Can’t I access the same information in a more user-friendly interface?
Technically, yes. Patent Examiners do regularly utilize Google Patents for searching. There are definite limitations, and there are benefits. For now, best to focus on the USPTO Patent Public Search — there is a learning curve but it is more powerful and offers more applicable results than Google.
