Miscellaneous materials

Patents

U. S. Patents

You can obtain information about finding and using patents by consulting one of the college librarians for engineering or science.

• All United States patents issued since 1790 are available as full page images directly from the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Web Patent Database. 
• Patents issued since 1976 are also available as full-text HTML pages.
• Complete instructions for searching and downloading full text images of patents are provided on the USPTO web pages.

If the patent you need is a U. S. Patent that is for some reason not included in the USPTO database, or if it is a foreign patent, then we may be able to obtain the patent for you through interlibrary loan at no cost to you.

Foreign patents

The European Patent Office provides access to a variety of Patent Information Products and Search Engines. 

• esp@cenet is a gateway to patent indexes, with support for several languages when accessed through the national offices of member states
• English, German, and French interfaces are available on the European Patent Office's Patent Databases page. 
• Included are patents from the European Patent Office, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and from world-wide sources including the United States and Japan.

Requesting a patent that is not available through the USPTO or European Patent Office

Please logon to ILLiad and select Request a Patent from the left menu.

Include the following information about the patent you need:

• Patent Number
• Title of the Patent
• Country of Origin (In what country was the patent registered?)
• Author/Patent Holder

Finding patents

You may also wish to consult a Web-based patent tutorial at the University of California, San Diego.