Engineers frequently file for patents and trademarks for the ideas and products they produce. You might want to search already existing patents and trademarks to gain insight about what has already been done that is relevant to your project.

As a first step toward identifying patents and trademarks, Grainger Library offers the Classification and Search Support Information System (CASSIS) machine provided by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Using the programs available on this machine, you can search for registered trademarks by the trademark name, corporate name, or creator. You can search for patents by inventor, corporate affiliation, classification schedule, patent title, or patent number. Additionally, you can print the full text of ones granted after July 1996.

Some other useful sources include:

• The USPTO web site provides access to the full text of patents granted since 1976.
• Patents: What They Are and How to Find Them is a basic tutorial intended for use by scientists, librarians, and anyone interested in obtaining information from patents.
• Grainger Library's list of patents databases available over the web.