Easy Patent Searching

If you are looking for the patent that corresponds to an item with a patent date on it this page can help you find it. To do an effective pre-1976 patent search you need two pieces of information. 1) A likely classification and 2) a patent date (or partial patent date). Click here for help in picking other classifications.

1) Pick one or more USPTO common tool classification(s) below. 7 COMPOUND TOOLS 30 CUTLERY where planes and saws can typically be found 33 GEOMETRICAL INSTRUMENTS - rules & measuring stuff 74 MACHINE ELEMENT OR MECHANISM 81 TOOLS - where wrenches and screwdrivers can typically be found 144 WOODWORKING - machinery etc. 269 WORK HOLDERS - clamps etc. 403 JOINTS AND CONNECTIONS - folding rule joints etc D8 TOOLS AND HARDWARE D10 MEASURING, TESTING, OR SIGNALLING INSTRUMENTS Write in candidate(s) of your own. Put a space between classifications if specifying more than one. Can be used in conjunction with the checkboxes. The USPTO's classification help page is here (note that this page uses USPC's). 2) Enter a date or partial date: (see Details below)      Start over

Details

Enter as much of the patent date as you know. Any of the following can be entered:

• The full date in any of these formats
  • 1 6 1885
  • 01 06 1885
  • 01/06/1885
  • January 6, 1885
  • Jan 6, 1885
  • Jan. 6, 1885
  • 1885 01 06
  • 1885-01-06
• Enter the month as MM if you are uncertain of the exact month. The USPTO search generated will display the whole year's worth of patents.
• Enter the day of the month as DD if you are uncertain of the exact day or as 0D, 1D, 2D or 3D if only the last digit is uncertain.
• Enter an entire decade as a year with a single Y. example: 185Y would search patents from 1850 through 1859.

Note that in most cases only one wildcard choice is allowed. There are a few exceptions. One would be an entire year search. example: 1899-MM-DD would generate a search for all of 1899. Two other fringe cases would be where you want to concider the months from January through September or November to December. These could be entered as 1899-1M-DD or 1899-0M-DD to search the first 9 months of 1899 or the last three months respectively.