From the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), this is a suggested Seven Step Strategy for conducting preliminary searches of U.S. patents and published applications using free online resources of the USPTO and its bi-lateral partner EPO (European Patent Office).
1884 - present (Restricted to ODU)
Contains the Compendex (1969-present), Ei Backfile (Engineering Index from 1884-1968), Inspec (1969-present), and Inspec backfile (1896-1968) databases for searching on a broad range of topics within the scientific, applied science, technical, and engineering disciplines. Users must have pop-ups enabled on their browser for this resource to work. Access Engineering Village tutorial videos to view short videos on how to quickly search and retrieve the most relevant engineering research available.
Stands out from other non-patent-office-related databases for two reasons: first, it is noncommercial, and thus has no advertising; and, second, it allows gene-sequence searching, which is a feature unique to this database.
