10 Tricks to Search Patents on Google
Google Patents Search is a free tool to search patents in full text around the world. Learning how to use the Google Patent Search effectively on your own can provide valuable information: prior art for an invention, business intelligence for your startup, or technical knowledge within your field of research.
No matter what type of search you do, these 10 tricks below can save you a lot of time.
- Start with a simple keyword search
- Refine with advanced search fields
- Search for an exact expression
- Search patents assigned to an organization
- Combine keywords with booleans “OR” “AND”
- Search with a proximity operator
- Nest operators and keywords
- Instant search while reading a patent
- Generate a search URL with a formula
- Filter search results
1. Start with a simple keyword search
Go to patents.google.com and enter the keywords in the search bar.
Example query:
oral careThis will returns patents containing both keywords “oral” and “care” in any order and anywhere in the patent: in the title, abstract, description, claims…
2. Refine with advanced search fields
To search for a keyword in a particular field, you can use the advanced search interface at patents.google.com/advanced
3. Search for an exact expression
If you are looking for keywords in a specific order, put them between parentheses. This will search for the exact expression.
Example query:
(oral care)This will return patents containing the expression “oral care” but not patents containing the keywords “oral” and “care” out of order.
4. Search patents assigned to an organization
The company, organization, person, or more generally the entity that owns the patent is called an assignee.
Example query:
assignee:(Willo 32 SAS)
The company name needs to the official legal name. You can find this legal name on the company’s social media page (Crunchbase or LinkedIn), by looking up some patents from inventors, or on the company’s legal or privacy page.
Sometimes, a company may have multiple legal entity names. So this step may take a little effort to get the right name(s). Also, when a company goes through mergers and acquisitions or changes its name, you will need to search all the legal names.
This part is not the forte of Google Patent Search as you need to combine non-patent data (company names) manually. The Patent Strategy for Startups LinkedIn group is a good place to ask questions and share your tricks.
5. Combine keywords with booleans “OR” “AND”
In order to search for alternative keywords, you need to use explicitly the “OR” operator in the search bar.
Example query:
oral OR dentalYou can also use the “OR” operator for grouping exact expressions.
Example query:
(oral care) OR (dental care)By default, groups are associated with an “AND”. You don’t need to specify any operator.
Example query:
(oral care) (mouthpiece)This query will return all patents containing both the exact expression “oral care” and the keyword “mouthpiece”.
6. Search with a proximity operator
You can search keywords or expressions that are near each other.
Example query:
(oral OR dental) NEAR/2 mouthpieceThis query will return the patents that have “oral” or “care” separated by a maximum of two words from “mouthpiece”.
The keywords or expressions can be in any order. If you want to specify the order, use ADJ instead of NEAR.
Example query:
(oral OR dental) ADJ/2 mouthpiece7. Nest operators and keywords
You can also nest sub-queries by enclosing them in parentheses. There is no limit to the level of complexity.
Example query:
((( oral care)) OR ((dental care))) ((mouthpiece) OR ((mouth piece)))8. Instant search while reading a patent
You can select any word or expression to perform an instant search within the patent document. This is useful to start with the terms in the patent claims section and highlight some of them to retrieve the location in the patents where these words are defined.
9. Generate a search URL with a formula
By now, you probably noticed the queries are readable in the URL. You can use a simple formula to convert your text queries into search URLs. That way, you could generate queries in a spreadsheet and just click the generated search URL link to start the search.
Example formula:
"https://patents.google.com/?q="&SUBSTITUTE(A2," ","+")
10. Filter search results
Lastly, on the search result page, you can apply different filters on the “Patent Office”, the “Status”, the “Type”…
Select only patents that are in the US (pending or granted, active or abandoned):
country:USSelect only granted patents, not the pending applications:
status:GRANTSelect only utility (i.e., for inventions) patents, not design patents:
type:PATENTGoole Patents is free. It is simple to get started. And you can learn more with the advanced search user interface.
The tips and tricks above help you get to the next level: automating some queries, saving text versions of queries to use later, creating complex queries in text format that the search user interface does not allow.
You can search based on your particular interests:
- a novelty search to determine whether your idea is novel,
- a competitive landscape search to gain business insights about actors in a technology area, or
- an academic search to determine a state of the art in a particular field.
Other than searching, you can use Google Patents for browsing (instant search tip #8), sharing links to patents, and automatically translating foreign patents.
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Ivan Chaperot is a patent strategist and writer. He received an MS from Paris-Sud University, practiced patent law as a European Patent Attorney, and was named one of the World’s Leading IP Strategist (IAM-300). He is on LinkedIn and Twitter, and you can read more about his work on Medium.
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