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What is a Patent?
A patent is a type of intellectual property*. It is a document that describes an invention and grants the holder the exclusive right to manufacture the invention in the country that granted the patent for a limited amount of time. In order for an invention to be granted a patent, it must be:
- novel or new (be the first in the world)
- useful (be functional and operative)
- non-obvious (not be obvious to someone skilled in that area)
Key Resources
You can self-register for Waterloo's Intellectual Property Literacy course on LEARN to understand the basics of intellectual property.
To register, login to LEARN > select Self-Registration > locate the Intellectual Property Literacy 01 course > select Register
Why Patent?
You might patent your invention for several reasons:
- Exclusive rights: Patents provide you the exclusive rights to use and exploit an invention for a set amount of time (typically 20 years) from the date of filing.
- Strong market position: Through these exclusive rights, you are able to prevent others from commercially using your patented invention, thereby reducing competition and establishing yourself in the market as the pre-eminent player.
- Opportunity to license or sell the invention: If you chose not to exploit the patent yourself, you may sell it or license the rights to commercialize it to another enterprise for a profit.
Where to Look for Patents?
Patents are usually filed first in their country of origin, and then filed in other countries as needed. For this reason, you may need to look in several search engines to ensure you've done a thorough search. However, many countries' patents are indexed through the World Intellectual Property Organization's PatentScope database, or through aggregators like Lens.
- Canadian Intellectual Property OfficeThis database lets you access 146 years of Canadian patent descriptions and images. You can search, retrieve and study more than 2,220,000 patent documents.
- European Patent Office - EspacenetEspacenet offers free access to more than 90 million patent documents worldwide, containing information about inventions and technical developments from 1836 to today.
- Google PatentsGoogle Patents covers the entire collection of granted patents and published patent applications from the USPTO, European Patent Office, and World Intellectual Property Organization. US patent documents from 1790, EPO and WIPO from 1978.
- LensLens.org is a user-friendly global patent search tool. It allows you to search for patents using Boolean search and to narrow results via filters.
- USPTO Patent Public SearchSearch US patents using the Patent Public Search tool. This includes patent applications that are currently under review and patents that have already been issued.
- World Intellectual Property Office - PatentScopeThe PatentScope database provides access to international Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications in full text format on the day of publication, as well as to patent documents of participating national and regional patent offices.
How to Look for Patents?
The documents below provide useful instructions on how to search for patents, and how to read patent documents.
- How to Read a U.S. PatentQueen's University Library created an overview of the parts of a patent to help you read the documents accurately.
- 6.5-Step US Patent Search Strategy Guide (PDF)The University of Maine designed this guide to walk you through searching for patents by classification code.
- Seven-step U.S. Patent Search StrategyThe USPTO published a 7-step search strategy that highlights how to create a complex search. While the examples are U.S. specific, the strategies could be used to find patents in almost any database.