Research Guides: Entrepreneurship: Intellectual Property

OSU Innovation and Economic Development Office *

Have a question about protecting your invention, forming a startup or other parts of the commercialization process? Technology commercialization licensing managers have established office hours at various locations around campus to help answer your questions.

USPTO - Patent and Trademark Resource Centers *

United States map in dark blue with Patent and Trademark Resource Center (PTRC) locations indicated

A Patent and Trademark Research Center (PTRC) is a library that's part of a USPTO network; they have specialized databases for patent research that you can't access anywhere else, and librarians that are trained in this particular research and are happy to help you search. Luckily for you, OSUL is a PTRC location! Reach out to the librarian for more info, or click on the image to go to our guide!

Patents

Please note that these free patent resources are a good place to start a patent search and/or can be used for idea generation, but a full patent search is likely going to involve going to a USPTO Patent and Trademark Resource Center (PTRC), and potentially the assistance of an attorney.

Innography Patent Scout
This is a subscription service available thanks to the Innovation and Economic Development Office; just register with your OSU email. The office recommends this as your first choice for patent searching. The semantic search option even allows you to enter descriptive text that describes how the invention works or what its benefits are as your search.
Free Patents Online *
This site includes the ability to browse patents by topic areas, or search by document or application number, title, abstract terms, description keywords and more. Includes some Japanese, German and WIPO content.
Google Patents *
Includes full text of patents from around the world (the broadest geographic coverage). Advanced search options include limiting by investor, assignee, patent office, language, status, type or date. Full text of patents since 2001. Best to use only if your intellectual property has already been discussed in published literature.
USPTO Patent Full-Text Databases *
From the United States Patent and Trademark Office; this site doesn't have the prettiest user interface, but content includes patents from 1976 - present.
PATENTSCOPE *
This site gives you access to international Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications in full text, as well as to patent documents of participating national and regional patent offices. You can search by keywords, names of applicants, international patent classification and more. You can also perform a chemical compound search by a drawn sub-structure; the database contains some 10 million structures that can be probed for a particular fragment.

Trademarks

USPTO - Trademark Basics *
Some basic background information on trademarks and the application process.
USPTO - Trademarks - TESS *
This online resources page will link you to the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS).

Copyright

Ohio State University Libraries Copyright Services *
The Libraries provides guidance on copyright issues for research and scholarship.
United States Copyright Office *
This site includes background information on copyright law, how to register a copyright, frequently asked questions and more.
Creative Commons *
Creative Commons provides free, easy-to-use copyright licenses for people who want to give the public permission to share and use their creative works, with a variety of restrictions by choice of creator.

Intellectual Property Basics Video Series *

Director of Licensing for U-M Tech Transfer, Bryce; the lecturer in all the videos in the linked series

This video series provides an introduction to patents, copyright, trademarks and trade secrets. (2013)

United States Patent and Trademark Office *

The 'Inventor and entrepreneur resources' page includes information on patents for startups, trademarks for inventors and links to further entrepreneur assistance pages.