What is a Patent?
A patent may be defined as a grant by the State of exclusive rights for a limited time in respect of a new and useful invention (Grubb, P.W. 1999, Patents for chemicals, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, Clarendon Press: Oxford, p.1.).
Patents protect the intellectual property of the inventor, preventing unauthorised people from practicing the invention. Patents are granted for a particular territory, and an inventor wishing to have protection in a number of countries must obtain separate patents in each of them.
The European Patent convention requires in patents that the invention is new, that it must involve an inventive step and that it must be capable of industrial application. These requirements are fairly standard in all countries that have a system of patent application.
More information is available at The British Library : Introduction to intellectual property
Patent Offices
- AU Published Patent Data SearchingSearchable database of Australian published patents. Links to full text where available.
- United States Patent and Trademark OfficeSearchable database of US patents with full text of both published patents and patent applications provided in TIFF format.
- Europe’s Network of Patent DatabasesProvides access to published patent documents from three databases: the EP (European Patent Office) database, the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) database and the worldwide database (72 different countries and regions).
Databases & Search Engines
- SciFinderA bibliographic database which indexes patents and other publications in pharmaceutical, chemical and materials science and engineering.
- ScirusScirus indexes patents from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the European Patent Office (EPO), the Japanese Patent Office (JPO) and the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Indexing is not comprehensive, only scientific patents or those considered relevant to the scientific community are included.
- Google Patent SearchIndexes USPTO issued patents from the 1790s onwards. It does not cover US patent applications, international patents, or recently issued U.S. patents.
Online Guides to Patents
- Patent fundamentals for scientists and engineersLibrary subscribed e-book.
- What Every Chemist Should Know About Patents (3rd ed. 2002)Online guide from the American Chemical Society.
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