Patents Resource Guide, page 4

Online resources

This selection of links to key websites provides easy access to a broad range of additional resources for research and study.

IP Australia

http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au 
Provides patent data back to 1975 and bibliographic data, 1920-1974.

Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand (IPONZ)

http://www.iponz.govt.nz
IPONZ registers patents, trademarks and designs.

United States Patent and Trademark Office

http://www.uspto.gov
United States Patent and Trademark Office, provides U.S. patent information from 1790 to present. Patents issued 1790-1976 only searchable by patent number and current U.S. patent classification.

U.K. Patent Office

http://www.patent.gov.uk/
U.K. Patent Office is responsible for copyright, designs, patents and trademarks.

Espacenet

http://ep.espacenet.com/
Espacenet is a free service for patent searching in Europe’s network of 18 member countries. Abstracts of documents going back to 1970 and images of patents documents for the most important countries in the network going back to 1920.

Japan Patent Office

http://www.jpo.go.jp/
This web site allows quick searches of the Patent Abstract of Japan back to 1976.

Canadian Patents Database

http://patents1.ic.gc.ca/intro-e.html 
Canadian Patents Database of the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, contains more than 75 years’ worth of patent descriptions and images.