Patent Search Engines: Worldwide
The search tools on this page cover patents from countries around the world, rather than just one. All are free unless otherwise noted.
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The Lens: Patent SearchThe Lens covers over 100 million patent documents from around the world. Includes classification searching and quick access to patent family information. Patents identified using the Lens can then be tracked down elsewhere if full text is not available in the Lens.
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EspacenetFree access to millions of patent documents, containing information about inventions and technical developments from around the world.
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Google PatentsThis is exactly what it sounds like – Google's patent database. It offers the ability to search through U.S. patents by patent number, inventor, keywords, date, classification number, or patent type. It also includes patent applications and international patents. Use Advanced Search form for specialized searches: https://patents.google.com/advanced
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PATENTSCOPEPatent search tool from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Includes cross-lingual information retrieval and machine translation for several languages. Searches worldwide patents and links to documents in their national databases.
Patent Search Engines: United States
The search tools on this page cover only patents from the United States. All are free unless otherwise noted.
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USPTO Web Patent DatabasesContains links to the various databases of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Provides full-text of patents from 1976 to the present and full-page images for patents starting in 1790. Patent images can only be searched by issue date, patent number, and classification.
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pat2pdfThis is a free website that will allow you to enter a U.S. patent number and retrieve a PDF version of the patent. The documents are drawn from the USPTO file server and it does not require any special software to view the images.
Patent Search Engines: Non-U.S. National Sites
The search tools on this page cover patents from individual countries or limited coalitions of countries. All are free unless otherwise noted. Be aware: some sites are best searched in their native language. Even when English translations are available, they are often automatically machine-generated and may contain errors or inconsistencies.
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African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) Search SystemThe African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) regional IP database includes information on patents, industrial designs, utility models, copyright and plant varieties from 20 African countries. ARIPO also works with member states to provide IP protection for traditional knowledge.
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Canadian Patent DatabaseThe Canadian Patent Database contains all Canadian patents (both applications and granted patents) since 1924. Contains only bibliographic data, titles and images. No abstracts or claims data are available for patents granted prior to August 15, 1978.
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CNIPA Patent Search and AnalysisThe China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) offers a free search engine for Chinese patent information. Click "English" for the English language version of the site.
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Japan Platform for Patent Information (J-PlatPat)Provides information on Japanese patents, utility models, designs, and trademarks. Machine-generated English translations are available.
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Korea Industrial Property Rights Information Services (KIPRIS)Covers domestic and foreign industrial property information such as patents, utility models, trademarks, and designs owned by the Korean Intellectual Property Office.
Patent translations
Many patent documents, or at least their abstracts, are automatically translated into English using automated machine (computer) translations. If this is insufficient or a translation does not exist, the European Patent Office offers a fee-based translation service for Chinese, Korean, and Japanese patents.
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EPO Patent Translation ServiceFee-based EPO service for ordering human translations of patent documents from Japanese, Korean or Chinese into English or German.
Patent Equivalents
A "patent family" can be defined as all patent equivalents for a single invention. All of the published patent applications from various countries and the subsequent granted patents on an invention are commonly referred to as patent equivalents. They are not “true equivalents” in that each country may have different regulations for filing and different interpretations of the invention. It may include multiple patents in some countries because of differences in patent laws. When applying for a U.S. patent, inventors will need to know of any “prior art” which includes similar foreign patents or patent equivalents.
