The USPTO Patent Search Strategy: Step 5— Citation References
You’ve researched patents yourself using keyword terms and reviewing the CPC classifications.
Why not enlist the help of others that have already done the work to help you along in your search for prior art?
Now we’re going to take a look at what the professionals (patent attorneys and patent examiners themselves) uncovered in their prior art searches in step five of the USPTO Search Strategy:
Review cited references.
The front page of a patent includes a section of cited references provided by the applicant and/or the patent examiner. Review the U.S. patents and published patent applications that a patent has cited and/or the patents that have cited them since their publication. Patent Public Search can provide a search of both the backward and forward citations.
This very powerful element of the USPTO Public Patent Search will provide you, the user, the ability to view patent literature that was (1) cited by patent examiners during their investigation into the patentability of an invention in determining whether or not to grant a patent and (2) cited by patent attorneys/applicants in their duty to disclose relevant literature for their inventor clients.
It’s like having a search done already for you!
Well, not quite.
Some references are better than others, so you’ll have to keep a couple of things in mind:
The first is that “examiner-cited” references tend to be more relevant, as they were most likely used in rejecting an application for a patent, and thus more closely related to the invention listed.
The second is that many times applicant-listed citations are very broad and not well researched.
You’ll want to review the entirety of the references anyhow, just to be sure.
Let’s take a brief look at an example patent document for a hammer which includes a plurality of listed references cited by both examiner and applicant: Patent No. 10,464,198
Using the Public Patent Search tool we’re going to view these listed references by conducting a “backward citation search”
First, we bring up the hammer patent using “10464198.pn.”
Find the “References Cited” area on the document and note that some include an asterisk and others do not. You’ll want to pay particular attention to the “*” references, as they are cited by the examiner.
Once this is up, all you need to do is click the backward citation search:
And voila! all references are now pulled up. Convenient, right?
But wait, we’re not done.
You can also search for all future granted patents and patent applications which cite this hammer patent, as they, too, could be describing something similar to your invention.
You do this by clicking on the forward citation search button:
And you’ll note that you can simultaneously search forward and backward citations if you like by clicking on the forward/backward citation button:
Again, you can search just within these references with keywords if you like, or, ideally, go through each one to conduct a more thorough search.
And … that’s it! You’re doing with searching using the USPTO Public Search Tool.
There is, however, one more critical step in as thoroughly as possible determining what prior art may exist preventing or discouraging you from application for a patent.
The final step in this series will review expanding your search beyond the USPTO.
