The main publicly available (and free) patent search engines are;
- EU Patent Office, ESPACENET, and the
- US Patent and Trademark Office
Searching is generally conducted using one or more “keywords”. However, in the “Advanced” section of espacenet, it is possible to search under an investigators name by entering the name in the INVENTOR field. Likewise, if you feel that a company may have patents in the field of interest, then the search may be directed to patents in the name of that company by putting the company name into the APPLICANT field.
A further method of directed searching is to search using the International Patent Classification (IPC) field in the “Advanced Search” section of Espacenet. Details of the IPC coding system can be found on the WIPO website. Medical diagnosis (diagnostics) is classified under A61B and medical therapy (therapeutics) is classified under A61K.
Further advice on searching can be obtained from Technology Transfer.