Patents
To find patents search by number, keyword, personal or organisation name, or by classification (
see below). Older patents can often be downloaded freely, but current patents need to be purchased.
To discover more patents and associated journal articles you can search one of these databases:
SciFinder Scholar for chemistry, biochemistry, pharmacy, pharmacology, chemical Engineering, agricultural chemistry. To limit your search to patents, click Filters, select Patent under Document type.
Inspec for physics, electronics, communications, electrical engineering, control engineering, information technology, computers. To limit your search to patents, click More Limits, select Patent under Publication Types and click Limit a Search.
Medline for medicine, health care and associated areas such as nursing and dentistry. To limit your search to patents, click More Limits, select Patent under Publication Types and click Limit a Search.
Compendex for all engineering disciplines. To limit your search to patents (before 1970 only), select Patents under document types.
Web of Science for a cited reference search. This allows you to find journal articles which have cited a particular patent. Enter the patent number in the Cited Work field or the first listed inventor or patent assignee in the Cited Author field.
Off-campus access to databases is
for students and staff of University of Sydney only. If you are using an Internet Service Provider other than the University of Sydney, you will be asked to enter your authentication details (name and library barcode number). More about
off-campus access.
Intellectual property or IP refers to property that derives from the work of the mind. Copyright is a category of IP which applies to literary and artistic works. The other category includes inventions, trade marks, original designs, industrial processes, confidential information (also referred to as trade secrets), amongst others. For more information see:
- Business Liaison Office - the commercial arm of the University of Sydney
- IP Access - Australian resources for intellectual property users
- SNIPER - a bibliographic database of journal articles, conference papers, and other documents about issues in intellectual property (produced by the Library at IP Australia)
- WebLaw - Intellectual Property - a cooperative subject gateway to Internet resources for Australian legal researchers
- WIPO - World Intellectual Property Organization
- Patents and Patent Searching. The definition, requirements for and types of patents are discussed as well as tools available to access patents. Steps needed to
perform a patent subject search are delineated. Includes World Wide Web resources for information on patents and searching access to patents (article by Alice K. Kawakami)
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Patent Searching Without Words This article from the newsletter
Free Pint explains how to search for patents using classification tools (International Patent Classification - IPC, US Patent Classification - USC, European Classification - ECLA, File Index scheme used by the Japanese Patent Office - FI).
This means looking for concepts rather than a mere match of words, and can assist in improving the precision and recall of searches.
- Patent Information Users Group, the International Society for Patent Information
