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About patents

A patent is an agreement between an inventor and a country, that confers ownership and permits the owner to exclude others from making, using or selling the claimed invention or discovery.

Countries have different rules on granting patents, but generally the most important feature is that the discovery or invention must not have been reported previously in the literature. The inventor must insure that the published literature has been searched comprehensively and that there is no 'Prior Art' (previously reported discovery).

A search for Prior Art must be carried out by searching selected databases to find published journal articles on the topic, or other published patents, conference proceedings or as a document on the web.

How to read a patent

Important components of a patent document include:

Patent number

Title of the patent

Patent inventors

Claims

Try the 'Patent Number' search option using the US Patent & Trademark Office patent database http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html

Look at the components of the Patent US4937259 'Antihypercholesterolemic componds' by Ta Jyh Lee

1. What are the major claims in the the patent you've found?

2. What parts were written by the Inventor?

3. What parts were written by the Examiner?.

See also Engineering Guide to Patents

Faculty Liaison Librarian : School of Chemistry and School of Molecular and Microbial Biosciences
Belinda Norman (Monday, Thursday and Friday)
Caroline Regan (Tuesday, Wednesday)
Phone: 9351 3009
Fax: 9351 6459