Patents: Patents

• U.S. Patent and Trademark Office 
  Search patents issued from 1790-present. Patents issued before 1976 are only searchable by patent number or Classification Code. USPTO's 7-step patent search strategy. Note: You must have a TIFF image viewer plug-in installed (free) in order to view the full page images.
   
• Google Patent Search 
  Search patents issued or filed from 1790-present. Patents are viewable in PDF.
   
• pat2pdf.org 
  Free patent printing site. Enter the number of the patent you want and this database will retrieve the patent in PDF form from the USPTO website.
   
• San Jose Public Library Patent and Trademark Resource Center 
  The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library is a U.S. Patent and Trademark Depository Library and can assist in patent research and periodically offers patent classes and workshops. For similar services see also the California State Library Patent and Resource Center.

• Patent Lens
  Search data from the World Intellectual Property Organization, European Patent Office, U.S. Patent Office, and the Australian Patent Office.
   
• World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) 
  Search international patent applications.
   
• FreePatentsOnline 
  Search U.S. and foreign patents, published patent applications, product literature, and other non-patent literature. Must create a free account in order to view images.

Canadian Patents

• Canadian Intellectual Property Office 
  Bibliographic databases (titles, names, dates, and classifications) available from 1869–present, images from 1920–present, and text databases from 1978–present.

European Patents

• European Patent Office 
  Search just European patents published in the last 24 months or search worldwide for older publications.
   
• German Patent and Trade Mark Office 
  Search German patents. Website is in the German language.

Japanese Patents

• Japan Patent Office 
  Search Japanese patents and utility models, design applications, and trademarks.