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Patent Information Guide

This guide is designed for novice inventors looking for general information on patents and patent information.

Serious inventors should contact the University/Industry Liaison Office and/or PATSCAN® - a service of PATEX Research and Consulting Ltd. for professional advice and services.

What is a patent?

"a right, granted by government, to exclude others from making, using, or selling your invention in Canada."

"Patents cover new inventions (process, machine, manufacture, compostion of matter) or any new and useful improvement of an existing machine."

 

"A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the Patent and Trademark Office. The term of a new patent is 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States or, in special cases, from the date an earlier related application was filed, subject to the payment of maintenance fees. US patent grants are effective only within the US, US territories, and US possessions.

The right conferred by the patent grant is, in the language of the statute and of the grant itself, “the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” the invention in the United States or “importing” the invention into the United States. What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import, but the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention."

Background Information

  • A Guide to patents [pdf]. Canadian Intellectual Property Office.
  • What every chemist should know about patents. [pdf] 2002.
  • Cook, Trevor. A user's guide to patents. London: Butterworths, 2007. Bennett Library  KD 1369.3 C66 2007 .
  • Durham, Alan L. Patent law essentials: a concise guide, 2d.ed. Westport, Conn. : Praeger, 2004. Bennett Library KF 3114.3 D87 2004 or online
  • Gilbert, Jill. The entrepreneur's guide to patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets & licensing. New York : Berkley Books, 2004. Bennett Library KF 2979 G55 2004  and Fraser Library (Surrey) KF 2979 G55 2004 c.2.
  • Niazi, Sarfaraz. Filing patents online: a professional guide. Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2003. Bennett Library KF 3125 C5 N53 2003  or online
  • Rockman, Howard B. Intellectual property law for engineers and scientists. Hoboken : IEEE Press : Wiley, 2004. Bennett Library KF 2979 R63 2004 
  • Shiva, Vandana. Protect or plunder? : understanding intellectual property rights. London: Zed Books, 2001. Bennett Library TP 248.175 S55 2001
  • Turning science into business : patenting and licensing at public research organisations. Paris, France : Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, 2003. Bennett Library  T 210 T87 2003 
  • FAQ list from the Patent section of the Canadian Intellectual Property Office.
  • Guides from the United States Patent Office (USPTO).

Intellectual Property Law and Legislation

  • Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights - The TRIPS Agreement is Annex 1C of the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization, signed in Marrakesh, Morocco on 15 April 1994.
  • Intellectual property and international trade : the TRIPs agreement, edited by Carlos M. Correa, Abdulqawi A. Yusuf. London: Kluwer Law International, 1998. Bennett Library K 1401 A41994 C67 1998
  • International treaties on intellectual property, 2d.ed. edited by Marshall A. Leaffer. Washington, D.C. : Bureau of National Affairs, 1997. Bennett Library Z 552 I598 1997
  • Mathews, Duncan. Globalising intellectual property rights : the TRIPs Agreement. London: Routledge, 2002. Bennett Library K 1401 M38 2002
  • Ryan, Michael P. Knowledge diplomacy : global competition and the politics of intellectual property. Washington: Brookings Institutional Press, 1998. Bennett Library KF 2979 R93 1998
  • Patent Act ( R.S. 1985, c. P-4 ) [Canada - unofficial text made available by the Department of Justice website, for reference use only - note the "Act current to" date - may not contain the latest text of recent ammendments to the Act]
  • Canada Statute Citator. Bennett Reference KE 106 C35 [The Canada Statute Citator will list all ammendments since the last published Consolidated statutes and regulations of Canada (1995-)].

Searching for Patents

  • Canadian Patents Database - access to over 75 years of patent descriptions and images from the Canadian Intellectual Property Office.
  • esp@cenet - Europe's network of patent databases. A free service on the internet provided by the European Patent Organisation and the national offices of its members states.
  • Google Patents - Patents from the USPTO - but with a google-like searching interface.  Google and USPTO have an agreement to provide patents (grants, applications, assignments, classification information, and maintenance fee events) and trademarks (grants, applications, assignments, and TTAB proceedings)
  • Lexis-Nexis - under Legal Research - Patent Research.
  • SciFinder Scholar - references to chemical-related patents (as well as patent applications) with links to full-text and images where freely available. If you are doing a chemical patent search for non-academic research which may be patentable, users should contact CAS directly about obtaining a commercial STN account instead of searching in SciFinder Scholar (which is restricted to academic research).
  • United States Patent and Trademark Office - full-text since 1976, full-page images since 1790, as well as access to US patent applications. A TIFF viewer is required to view images.

Ordering Patents

Need More Help?

 If you have any further questions about patents, please contact Shane Plante (spa61@sfu.ca)

Owned by: Jenna Thomson
Revised by: Site Administrator
Last Modified: 2012-03-09