Patent drafting task # 4: patent searching

Brainstorm! Come up with terms that are potentially relevant to your client’s invention. Our main task here, however, is not to do keyword searching, but to use your terms to find relevant CPC (Cooperative Patent Classification) classes. CPC is a modern patent classification system used internationally, as opposed to the older USPC (U.S. Patent Classification) system. Both are still useful for searching, but we will only use CPC in this project.

Illustration: For example, suppose I invented a DO-IT-YOURSELF customizable electric guitar. The guitar is easily disassembled and reassembled on the fly, allowing me to quickly swap out parts and create different sounding and looking instruments. Before filing a patent application, I need to search other relevant guitar and electric guitar patents. Potentially good terms would be “electric guitar,” “guitar,” and “musical instruments.”

Start off with the USPTO homepage. Use the search box in the upper right and search CPC scheme _____, where the blank space is a search term relevant to your client’s invention.

Updated 2/26/24: Go here. Use the search box under “Classification Text Search” and search _____, where the blank space is a search term relevant to your client’s invention.

Illustration: Using the upper-right hand search box, I entered “CPC scheme guitar,” from which I found G10D and G10H to be of potential interest. These are main CPC classes.

Another way of finding potentially useful main CPC classes is by going to WIPO and clicking on “Catchwords.”

Illustration: The term “guitar” (in the range between GRENADES – GYROSCOPES) came up with nothing, so I tried the more general term “musical instruments” (between MUSEUMS – MYOGRAPHS). There I saw the same two solid possibilities: G10H for electrophonic musical instruments, and G10D for other musical instruments.

But finding the main CPC classes is only a start. Then I moved on to the next step.

Next, go to the CPC listings at either the USPTO or WIPO websites to find relevant CPC classes/subclasses/groups/subgroups.

It’s probably better for you to use the USPTO than WIPO, though I encourage you to try both.

For USPTO: Enter the CPC scheme you found in step 2. First, it’s easy to expand the USPTO listings. Up top of this USPTO page, there are buttons to expand or collapse listings. Second, the USPTO listings seem go into more detail than WIPO, which might help you to narrow your searching more quickly. Once you expand the CPC listings, you can use your browser’s find function (typically CTRL + F on Windows browsers; I don’t use Mac but try Command+F in Safari).

Illustration: Using the USPTO, I entered G10H. This took me here (click to see). I expanded the listings and looked through them. I also did a CTRL+F and found two subclasses for guitars, concluding that G10H 3/18 was of particular interest to me (“Instruments in which the tones are generated by electromechanical means . . . using a string, e.g. electric guitar”).

For WIPO: Click on the WIPO link. Wait for the page to load (it can take a minute). Then click on the letter for your scheme, and keep expanding till you reach your CPC code. Click on that code to enter the page. Alternatively, type your main CPC class into the search box in the upper-left and click the search icon. Scroll to the bottom of the page so the page opens entirely. Then read through the page (and use your browser’s find function) to find relevant subclasses.

Illustration: Using WIPO, I entered G10H into the search box. This took me here. I expanded the listings and looked for guitars, eventually concluding (again) that G10H 3/18 seemed very relevant.

Then I moved on to the next step.

Here you will be searching the combined patents/applications database Patent Public Search | USPTO. This combines several of the steps show in the older video on PatFT/AppFT.

In PPUBS, select advanced search. Then select enhanced search in the upper-right. Note that any search tips you find online (including my old video) designed for PatFT or App/FT are not going to work, as the search parameters and techniques have changed in some substantial ways. The examples below are for the new PPUBS.

You can search by all fields (the default, which is usually overly broad) or make more targeted searches using fields. To find the parameters for fields, slick on the HELP tab (bottom middle by default) and click “Field Specific searches.”

For instance, a good place to start is by searching the CPC code to search. When searching, you’ll have to eliminate the space in the CPC code, which requires that the CPC code be given in full without spaces (but with slashes,) followed by “.CPC.” – i.e., bracketing the field by dot-field-dot.

Illustration: An advanced PPUBS search for:

G10H3/18.cpc.

Again, make sure there are dots on either side of the field, here cpc. As of 03.2023 this led to nearly 700 hits, applications and patents. Try copying/pasting it into PPUBS and see if you get a similar number. [As of 3/26/23, I am not yet aware of any method to save this search to a permalink.]

Further keywords might be useful as a way to narrow down a bit. So let’s add a further search parameter: “guitar” in the specification, searching:

G10H3/18.cpc. AND guitar.spec.

Fewer hits (around 450 as of 2023) but still too many for this project.

Now I tried “electric guitar” rather than “guitar” in the specification. Note the use of quotes below.

G10H3/18.cpc. AND “electric guitar”.spec.

Now down to somewhat less than 300. Let’s try limiting by something else, the abstract, which is more likely to have terms most pertinent to the invention, whereas the specification might talk about things less pertinent.

G10H3/18.cpc. AND “electric guitar”.AB.

Now the number of hits is reduced, to a somewhat more manageable number over 60. Note that I could also try searching the claims, title, etc. For example:

G10H3/18.cpc. AND “electric guitar”.TI.

This leads to 30-something hits, something I can work with. Remember that the new PPUBS includes both issued patents and applications (and as such may have some duplication of a sort, so keep your eyes out).

Tip 1: As noted above, start with a CPC subclass, and if needed, narrow by adding keywords (ABST or SPEC are good places to use keyword limiting). If you were doing real-world patent searching, this might eliminate potentially relevant hits. But for this project, I am more interested in you learning the basics of what you’re doing.

Tip 2: If you do what I suggest above and there there are still a huge number of hits still, then use a rule of reason. This exercise is not a true patent search and I don’t expect you to do exhaustive searching. It’s a learning exercise. So if you’ve reasonably culled down the hits through CPC class + keywords, and there are still numerous hits, then look through a reasonable number of them and then stop.

Use the “Document Viewer” on the right. It defaults to text but you can easily switch to images with drawings. Toggle the T/camera button near the top left of the Document Viewer panel. Each view has advantages as text view can be easily searched (CTRL+F or OPTION+F), whereas image view lets you download the entire PDF of a patent with drawings by clicking the SAVE (disk) button in the image view.

WARNING: you cannot save your work between sessions on PPUBS. The tool also seems to sometimes clear everything out if you “RESET,” so be sure to regularly document your work as you go along. For example, you can save your search history by clicking the SAVE icon under Search History.

FIRST

What you need to do is look at the cover page for the narrowed-down patents you’ve found. I’d recommend you limit your search using fields as in the section above, and then click through the images of the cover pages using the document FFW button.

At first, look only at the cover page, particularly the title, abstract, and cover page drawing. If a hit seems potentially pertinent to the validity of your client’s invention under 102 or 103, then download the FULL PDF and save it to your device for later.

SECOND

After culling your potentially pertinent patents and applications, read those patents carefully to determine which may be most pertinent to the patentability of your client’s invention. Do they potentially render your client’s invention non-novel or obvious? In the real world, numerous prior art might be pertinent, but for this project, limit yourself (ideally) to the 2-3 most pertinent, and in practical terms, no more than five.

If you find pertinent hits, you might try to “design around” the prior art. That means you will draft your client’s claims sufficiently different from the prior art that they are novel and non-obvious.

Illustration: In reviewing the issued patents, I saw at least one hit that seemed highly pertinent to my hypothetical invention. See U.S. patent no. 9,466,269, an issued patent for “Electric guitar system for quick changes.” The abstract says:

An instant access guitar system allowing easy access to cavities in the body portion of the electric guitar. The cavities are covered by plates, a pick guard, flexible laminates or other suitable cover materials. The covers are held in place by magnets that magnetically attach to magnetic material mounted in the guitar body. The appearance of the guitar may be changed by changing the pick guard and the decorative laminate on the headstock. The sound of the guitar may be changed by having unique pickups and wiring releases pre-built in multiple configurations on multiple pick guards as modules to change in and out of the guitar at will with no tools or solder.

This looks like a patent I’ll have to consider carefully in determining the patentability of my hypothetical invention. This patent would also be relevant to me even if I don’t try to patent anything, because if I start to make and sell my guitars, they might infringe! So patent searching can be important not just to getting your own patents, but in avoiding infringing the patents of others!

Try using general search tools (such as Google), as well as sites like eBay and Amazon, Etsy, etc.

Do not search foreign patents at all for this project because that will make the project too unwieldy. Also, do not bother using the old USPC (U.S. Patent Classification). USPC is still useful for older patents, but again, I want to keep your project manageable. Equally so, there is no requirement in this project to search other databases, but depending on the field one might want to search, for example, pertinent scholarly literature. Finally, in the real world, one might hire a search professional (no, you may not do this for the class project!) You may, of course, seek guidance and assistance from me and your current T-Cubed Innovations class colleagues!

Illustration — using such tools, I found: 

• Google: article on a guitar with interchangeable parts (click to see). 
• eBay: 1970 guitar with interchangeable pickups (click to see).
• Amazon: no luck (and nothing to see here)