Getting Started
What is a patent?
A patent is a legal document that gives the patent owner certain exclusive rights in a specific country to his/her invention for a limited time, usually 20 years.
Patents can be a good source for information on new technology, trends in technological development, and innovations. They often contain references to other literature on the subject of coverage.
- EspacenetThe European Patent Office's (EPO) patent search engine, Esp@cenet, searches published patent applications in over 80 countries.
General Patent Information
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General Information on Patents (Stanford University Libraries)
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How to Read a Patent (PatentLens)
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Guide to Patent Searching (University of Texas, Austin)
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Tutorial on searching Google Patents and USPTO (University of Minnesota)
Patent Classification
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Index to Manual of the Classificaton of Patents- ibiblio.org - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Patent Information Bibliography- Patent Information Users GroupA comprehensive bibliography of books and journal articles related to patent searching.
Historical U.S. Patents
Subject Specialist
Regenstein 260
773-702-7569
Eckhart Library
Eckhart Hall Room 217
5734 S. University Ave
773-702-8778
Off-campus Access
Almost all Library databases can be accessed from off-campus. The easiest way to do this is to use links from the Library website. You will then be prompted for your CNetID and password to authenticate yourself as an authorized user.
If you find sources through Google Scholar or other search engines, you may not automatically get access to Library resources. Use the ProxyIt bookmarklet or Libkey Nomad in these situations. There's more information on these in our guide to off-campus access.
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