| Patsnap [MIT only] | FreePatentsOnline | Espacenet | USPTO | |
| Availability |
Create a free account to access the full subscription features. http://libraries.mit.edu/get/patsnap
|
Free access with limited functionality and advertisments. Free registration offers additional functionality (e.g. PDFs viewing) and eliminates ads. |
Free from European Patent office. |
Free from the US Patent & Trademark Office |
| US coverage |
1800 - Current. Includes both issued patents and applications. Searchable from 1920- |
1836-current; only selected pre-1976 patents are full-text searchable |
1836 - current. Abstracts from 1970- |
1790-current; pre-1976 can only search by patent # and class code |
|
Foreign coverage |
Europe 1976- ; China 1980- ; Japan 1976- ; Korea 1983- ; Taiwan 2003- ; WIPO 1978-. Additional European national databases recently added. Only recent years are searchable for some national databases. |
EPO (Europe+) 1981-; WIPO 1978-; Japanese 1976- |
EPO (Europe+) 1981-; WIPO 1978-; |
None |
| Search interface | Includes field and command line searching, as well as bulk download for known patent numbers. Features extensive browse, sort and filter options. | Includes proximity searching, word weighting, word stemming and presents results by relevancy ranking | Offers 3 search modes: Smart, Advanced, & Class. Includes onscreen syntax and search tips. | Awkward; must follow complex syntax; but includes detailed Help menu |
| PDFs |
Yes |
Yes, but registration required to view |
Yes |
No; requires TIFF viewer for images |
| Applications |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes, in separate database |
| RSS/email alerts |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
| Other |
• Patent application status • Data analysis and visualization tools • Image thumbnails with zoom function in results |
Registration required for advanced features such as saving searches, email alerts, viewing PDFs, etc. |
* Links to browsable online CPC classificaiton guide. * Interface available in multiple languates with links to numerous national patent databases. |
• Patent application status • Assignee changes • Sequence searching available |
