Before you spend money and time to apply for a patent, you should always do a patentability search to make sure that your technology has not been patented or published by others before.  For a patentability search, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) website is a good place to start. 

Here is the patent search website from USPTO: http://patft.uspto.gov/  You will notice that you will have to search Patent database and Patent Application database separately.  For each database, there are three search choices: Quick Search, Advanced Search, and Number search.  The following are the links you can follow for each type of search:

	Patent	Patent Application
Quick Search	http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html	http://appft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html
Advanced Search	http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-adv.htm	http://appft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-adv.html
Number Search	http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm	http://appft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html

Number search is similar to a document fetch function.  If you know a patent number or patent application number, it’s a good place to go.  In Quick Search, you can use a simple combination of keywords and field codes to do a quick search.  The function is useful if you are doing a relatively narrow or targeted search.  For me, the most useful tool is the Advanced Search function, which provides you more flexibility to define what you are looking for.  You can use the following Field Codes to narrow your search.  

Field Code	Field Name		Field code	Field Name
PN	Patent number		IN	Inventor name
ISD	Issue date		IC	Inventor city
TTL	title		IS	Inventor state
ABST	abstract		ICN	Inventor Country
ACLM	Claims		LREP	Attorney or Agent
SPEC	Description/specification		AN	Assignee name
CCL	Current US Classification		AC	Assignee city
ICL	International Classification		AS	Assignee state
APN	Application serial Number		ACN	Assignee country
APD	Application date		EXP	Primary examiner
PARN	Parent case information		EXA	Assistant Examiner
RLAP	Related US App. Data		REF	Referenced by
REIS	Reissue Data		FREF	Foreign references
PRIR	Foreign priority		OREF	Other references
PCT	PCT information		GOVT	Government interest
APT	Application type

Here are some additional tips:

1.       by placing a field code outside a set of parentheses in complex Boolean queries, you can apply that field code to every keyword in the contained expression.  For example, ABST/(((Fire AND protection) AND (Building OR structure) ANDNOT sprinkler)

2.       Search for a phrase.  For example, ABST/”absorption spectroscopy”

3.       Limiting the range of years searched.  You can apply the ISD field code to a range of dates by using the -> operator. For example, ISD/1/1/2003 -> 12/31/2005 AND ABST/“absorption spectroscopy”

4.       Inventor name search: IN, followed by the name of the inventor, last name first, with the placement of a dash (-) between the last and first name and between the first name and the middle initial.  For example, search Dr. Robert L. Forward, IN/Forward-Robert-L

Your search should return a list of patents or patent applications each hyperlinked to a HTML text document.  Unfortunately, the HTML text document does not include figures, drawings, and chemical structures.  If you want to see the image of the patent document, you will need to click on the “image” button at the top of the page, which will take you to the scanned images.

Thanks for reading.

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