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BMEG360: Engineering Junior and Senior Design

Prior Art Search

A thorough prior art search is usually conducted with a view to patent and can be quite time consuming. Below are some resources which define what a prior art search is and the basic steps involved. 

If you're not looking to patent specifically, but want to do a thorough search of the patent literature, then you can follow steps 1 - 5 discussed below (describe your invention - do a keyword search - do a CPC classification search - do a citation search) to identify relevant patents to your idea.

Summary of the six basic steps described in the USPTO web-based tutorial

  1. Brainstorm terms describing your invention
    • Answer questions about your invention to determine its purpose, construction, type, use, etc.
  2. Conduct a keyword search using USPTO Patent Public Search
    • Use search techniques to combine your terms; be aware of keyword search pitfalls
    • In a first pass, review the first page of your selected documents
  3. Conduct an in-depth review of the selected documents
    • In a second pass, review the drawing sheets, specifications, and claims of the selected documents
    • Search status report 1 - STOP if you find your invention was previously patented or disclosed in an application
  4. Expand the search to publications with relevant CPC classifications
    • Identify the most important CPC codes for your invention and search for patents with those codes
    • Review the selected documents
    • Search status report 2 - STOP if you find your invention was previously patented or disclosed in an application
  5. Review cited references
    • Review the references given in your selected documents; In USPTO, you can do a citation search (forward and backward)
    • Search status report 3 - STOP if you find your invention was previously patented or disclosed in an application
  6. Broaden your search with foreign patents, non-patent literature and/or a patent professional's search

At this point, if you've found no patents or applications related to your invention, the search is broadened to foreign patents and the non-patent literature (journal articles, conference proceedings, websites, technical catalogs, books, etc.)