Patent Public Search

Patent Public Search is the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)'s public search tool for patent and patent application information. It allows you to find and access U.S. patents issued from 1790 - present. These include utility, design, reissue, and plant patents, as well as SIR documents. It also allows you to find and access U.S. published patent applications (including new utility and plant) submitted from 2001 - present. Patent Public Search combines the functionality of four previous tools: Public-Examiner’s Automated Search Tool (PubEAST), Public-Web-based Examiner’s Search Tool (PubWEST), Patent Full-Text and Image Database (PatFT), and Patent Application Full-Text and Image Database (AppFT). 

Patent Public Search by default searches 3 databases:

• US-PGPUB (U.S. pre-grant patent applications from 3/2001 to present searchable by any word in the full text of the application)
• USPAT (U.S. patents from 1970-present searchable by any word in the full text of the patent; patents from 1790-1969 searchable only by issue date, patent number, and classification)
• USOCR (OCR scanned U.S. patents from approximately 1830’s -1970)

You may choose to search within any combination of these databases.