Patent Database Help

Patent Number
Enter patent number with NO commas

You type:	Retrieves:
584884	U.S. Patent 584884
584,884	Nothing

Title
Enter keyword or phrase.

You type:	Retrieves:
Harvester	Patent titled “Corn Harvester”
Beet Harvest	Patent titled “Beet Harvesting Machine”

Text will be found anywhere in a word.

You type:	Retrieves:
Measur	Patent titled “Tape Measure” or patent titled “Measuring Device”

There is no Boolean search capability.

You type:	Retrieves:
584,884	Nothing

Inventor Last Name
Enter name or part of name (from left)

You type:	Retrieves:
Col	Inventors with last name of Collard, Cole, or Collins

Note: Inventor names were entered as found in the source data and may be misspelled. Try different variations of the name.

Inventor First Name
Enter name or part of name (from left)

You type:	Retrieves:
Will	Inventors with first name of William, Will, or Willard

Note: The first name of the inventor was sometimes only an initial in the source data. If the first name was known (for example, by looking at the patent facsimile) it was entered. Searching by first name is generally not recommended.

Assignee Name
Assignee names were entered into the assignee field in the format last name, first name, middle initial (if applicable).

Assignees that are companies or corporations were entered as found in the source data.

You type:	Retrieves:
William	Assignee listed as Morris, William B.
National	Assignee listed as Idaho National Harvester, Ltd.

Note: No attempt was made to standardize names. The best way to search the field is by last name or one distinctive word from a company name. Phrase searching is allowed.

City
There is no partial field searching allowed on the City field. Type the full name of the city.

You type:	Retrieves:
Coeur	Nothing
Coeur d’Alene	Retrieves a number of patents

Note: An attempt was made to correct any misspellings of city names that occurred in the source data. City names were also standardized. For example, Bay Horse was entered as two words rather than Bayhorse.

Date
Enter dates in the format mm/dd/yyyy. No partial field searching is allowed.

You type:	Retrieves:
1893	Nothing
06/06/1893	Retrieves 3 patents