IP.com Global Patent Search

What Inventors Need to Know…

The “IP.com Global Patent Search”  tool may be your answer if you’re looking for a free and easy way to search for prior art patents. The speed of this search engine is amazing. It finds a result almost immediately.

IP.com offers a free search engine box to be integrated into a web site or blog. The search box enables the user to search patents and selected non-patent literature. It takes just seconds to copy and paste the HTML code snippet in an appropriate location on your website, allowing visitors to quickly access patent searching.

Try searching something in the Global Patent Search box below to see how it works!

I tried a few searches myself and was impressed with the database and its ease-of-use. While the USPTO search site makes it difficult to see images and to download patent documents in .PDF format, the IP.com search engine allows you to do both seamlessly.

However there was a point it asked me to type in a CAPTCHA to ensure that my search was not generated by a computer and I was a real person. What a pain in the neck! My eyes aren’t what they used to be, but I managed to type it in okay.

Below I pasted a sample of what a search result page looks like. I particularly like the “Options” box, especially its “More Like This” option because it instantly gave a neat organized list of prior art under the following titled headings:

• US Utility Registered Patents;
• US Utility Patent Applications; and
• Prior Art Database English Language Disclosures.

The “More Like This” feature certainly saves time because it allows you to get many similar examples of prior art with one simple click. This is faster than a search on the USPTO  search page where you have to go back and forth from the Patent Application search page to the Registered Patent search page.

The IP.com search engine provides many other features, like an Advanced Search page that allows the searcher to customize a search to more efficiently find what their looking for. All in all I believe the IP.com Global Patent Search engine is a valuable tool for inventors and patent practitioners alike.