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Engineering

What is a patent?

A patent protects an invention, or how something works. It may be a device, substance, method or process but it must be new, useful and inventive in order to be granted a patent. (IP Australia)

Patents make up a large proportion of published technical literature, are often the first publicly available report of an invention, and provide all the technical detail of the invention.

Patents can be used and referenced alongside other types of academic literature for research purposes. Whilst patents prevent you from using the device, substance, method or process that is documented for commercial production and financial gain you can still use the patent documentation to inform your research and build upon the ideas.

Reasons to use patent information
  • Find technical information about an product, technology, method, or process.
  • Find solutions for technical problems.
  • Look at trends and/or the latest developments in a field.
  • Find other individuals, groups or companies working in your field. In doing so, identify your competitors or potential collaborators or sponsors.
  • Check if an invention is open for use (because it's in the public domain or the patent protection has expired).
  • Check if your idea has already been invented or if something similar exists. 
  • Avoid duplicating work already being done elsewhere.
  • Avoid infringing on an existing protected patent.
Understanding patents
  • How to read a patent (LENS)
    Patents are a cross between a legal and technical document. This article will help you understand a typical patent document; it's structure and content. 

  • Patent country codes (EPO)
    Each patent will have a country code indicating the country or organisation where the patent application was filed or granted. 

  • International Patent Classification (IPC)
    All parents are classified according to their specific technical fields. The IPC is a common classification system used by most patent offices worldwide. E.g. A01B = A (Human necessities), 01 (agriculture), B (soil working). A patent classified under A01B will include techniques and equipment used to prepare soil for growing crops. 

  • WIPO Pearl
    WIPO’s Multilingual Terminology Portal - gives access to scientific and technical terms derived from patent documents.  It helps promote accurate and consistent use of terms across different languages, and makes it easier to search and share scientific and technical knowledge.

Where to find patents

IP Australia is the Australian Government agency that administers intellectual property (IP) rights and legislation for patents, trade marks, design rights and plant breeder's rights (PBR). The IP Australia website provides comprehensive instructions for how to search existing patents.

Or you can search in your target country's IP and patent office websites such as:

The following Library databases contain patent documents and information.

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Library guide created by Western Sydney University Library staff is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY)