Patent Information in Science, Technical, and Medical Library Instruction

Abstract

Patent information is now freely available online from many patenting authorities. Online tutorials for patent searching are available from engineering, business, and other library Web sites. This article highlights some areas to consider covering in library instruction, reviews patent tutorials, and gives some suggestions for delivering patent searching information to our students and library patrons. Copyright © 2007 Haworth Press. Patent Information in Science, Technical, and Medical Library Instruction “It is dangerous for modern design engineers not to be familiar with the role of patents in a competitive industry.” Charles A. Garris Jr. We can open the door of the world of patent searching to our science, technical, and medical (STM) students. While Garris, as a Professor of Engineering, calls for an understanding of such concepts as designing around a patent, patent litigation, and patent rights as assets, it is easily within our purview to explain the basics of patent searching in the United States patent system, as well as in the systems of other patenting authorities. When we instruct our students in searching databases that cover patent literature we are potentially exposing them to records for patents. Varying by database, Compendex, Inspec, and SciFinder Scholar records provide the following: title, assignee, inventors, patent number, filing date, patent issue date, country of application, and abstract. Compendex only indexes selected patents before 1970. With additional subscriptions, later United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) patents and European patents are included. Inspec only includes selective patents and all are from 1976 or earlier. Almost all of the Patents included come from the U.S. and U.K. SciFinder Scholar searches USPTO, European, and Japanese granted patents and USPTO and World patent applications and gives the International Patent Classification (IPC) code of the invention. Patent information is now freely available online from many patenting authorities. Online tutorials for patent searching are available from engineering, business, and other library Web sites. The following highlights some areas to consider covering in library instruction, reviews patent tutorials, and gives some suggestions for delivering patent searching information to our students and library patrons. SEARCHING UNITED STATES PATENTS Searching patents on the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Web site at http://www.uspto.gov has major drawbacks: keyword searching is not available prior to 1976 and accessing and printing the patent image is not seamless.