BUSN - Master of Biotechnology Business Library Resources

A  patent is granted by a government agency and gives the inventor the right to exclude others from making, using or selling the invention from the day the patent is granted to a maximum of 20 years after the day on which a patent application was filed. To find out more about patents refer to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) or the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) web sites.

Why Use Patents?

• Patents and Patent Applications often contain the first disclosure of a new technology or process.
• Patents are an underutilized source of scientific and commercial information linking scientific theory with "real world" applications.
• Patents contain diagrams and descriptions of how things work.
• Approximately two-thirds of  the information disclosed in patents is not published elsewhere according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Patent Searching  

Patent searching can be difficult and will require you to understand all the potential applications of your innovation.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) created a video that can walk you through the patent landscape: https://www.uspto.gov/video/cbt/prelim-patent-search/index.html Although this is a US based tool it can apply broadly. 

Best places to search:

• Lens.org (a great place to go for patents and related scholarly works) https://www.lens.org/
• World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO): https://www.wipo.int/patents/en/patent-information.html
• Canadian Intellectual Property Office: https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/canadian-intellectual-property-office/en
• USPTO: https://www.uspto.gov/patents
• Google Patents: https://patents.google.com/
• Orbis: If you have a public company that works in the area, you can search for the company and then click on the IP tab on the left-hand side