Patent Office Search Room

The extensive collections of source material available in the Patent Office Search Room and Scientific Library have been summarized superbly by Linden-meyer 11). 

To search the United States patent art, therefore, the first step is to examine the "Manual of Classification, together with the definitions furnished in the Classification Bulletins in order to determine, if possible, which classes will contain the art to be examined. The only classified sets of patents available to the public in this country are in the Patent Office search room in Washington. Some companies, therefore, maintain partial sets in their own libraries. These may be readily maintained by subscribing to the classes of special interest. In this way, copies of the patents classified by the Patent Office into these classes are automatically received. 

Patents. Maintaining a complete list of all patents under the various subclass numbers, especially the polymer subclasses of Class 260, with a brief abstract of each patent, is helpful. Periodically this may be brought up to date in the Patent Office search room. When a project in a particular line becomes active, the important patents may be purchased and filed. In this manner a very complete patent file can be built up over a period of time, without excessive expense. The patent literature may be invaluable, not only for pointing out interferences, but also for indicating, in many cases, that there must be a better way. It must also be remembered that a patent is not issued until about two years after the application is made. This lag must be made up from other sources of information, such as consultants. 

Pending issuance of the patent, an applicant may maintain the information in the application as a trade secret. Until the patent issues, the Patent and Trademark Office keeps all information about the patent application secret. 35 U.S.C. 122. Applications are not available to the public or to other inventors. However, once the patent issues, the application and supporting documents, as well as Patent and Trademark Office action on the application, are filed in the Patent and Trademark Office search room. Such disclosure ends trade secret protection over the disclosed information. 

The spacious, though usually crowded. Search Room at the Patent Office is the only place in this country where a thorough patent search can be made expeditiously. The term expeditiously is here used in a comparative sense, because the search in a complex field may require several days or weeks of concentrated effort even at the Patent Office, but would require much more work and time elsewhere. 

The Scientific and Technical Information Center of the Patent and Trademark Office in Arlington, Virginia has a Search Room where the public may search and examine U.S. patents granted since 1836. There, patents are arranged in over 400 classes and 120,000 subclasses. By searching these classified patents, it is possible to determine, before actually filing an application, whether an invention has been anticipated by a U.S. patent. 

Since a patent is not always granted when an application is filed, many inventors attempt to make their own search before applying for a patent. This may be done in the Search Room of the Patent and Trademark Office or at libraries located throughout the United States which have been designated as Patent Depository Libraries. 

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