What Is a Patent Keyword Search?
A patent keyword search is an early step in the process of applying for a patent. Applying for a patent takes a lot of time and money. And you can only get a patent for an invention no one has thought of before. So by doing a patent keyword search, you get a good sense of whether your invention can be patented or a competing patent already exists.
It is important to remember that just because you have never seen something like your invention, that does not mean you are the first person to think of it.
Why Is a Patent Keyword Search Important?
A patent keyword search is an important step in preparing your patent application. This kind of research helps you do several things:
Find previous patents or information …show more content…
However, a patent classification search has challenges and limitations. There are many patent catalogs around the world. These are broken into:
Classes, which you can think of as big buckets Subclasses, which are like smaller buckets within the big one
(The International Patent Classification also uses Sections and Groups. Sections are larger than Classes, and Groups are smaller than Subclasses.)
Right now there are more than 450 classes that separate one technology from another. There are more than 150,000 subclasses that organize each class.
A given class or subclass may contain tens of thousands of patent records. So it is best to use a patent classification search to locate the right classifications. Then use keyword searches to filter the results.
Prior Art
Prior art is another term for "state of the art." It refers to all previous information about a specific science or technology. Any public document published before the patent application date can be considered prior art. When you do a patent keyword search, you are trying to find any prior art that is similar to any part of your
A patent keyword search is an early step in the process of applying for a patent. Applying for a patent takes a lot of time and money. And you can only get a patent for an invention no one has thought of before. So by doing a patent keyword search, you get a good sense of whether your invention can be patented or a competing patent already exists.
It is important to remember that just because you have never seen something like your invention, that does not mean you are the first person to think of it.
Why Is a Patent Keyword Search Important?
A patent keyword search is an important step in preparing your patent application. This kind of research helps you do several things:
Find previous patents or information …show more content…
However, a patent classification search has challenges and limitations. There are many patent catalogs around the world. These are broken into:
Classes, which you can think of as big buckets Subclasses, which are like smaller buckets within the big one
(The International Patent Classification also uses Sections and Groups. Sections are larger than Classes, and Groups are smaller than Subclasses.)
Right now there are more than 450 classes that separate one technology from another. There are more than 150,000 subclasses that organize each class.
A given class or subclass may contain tens of thousands of patent records. So it is best to use a patent classification search to locate the right classifications. Then use keyword searches to filter the results.
Prior Art
Prior art is another term for "state of the art." It refers to all previous information about a specific science or technology. Any public document published before the patent application date can be considered prior art. When you do a patent keyword search, you are trying to find any prior art that is similar to any part of your