Below are a number of treatises available in the General Collection of the Chickasaw Nation Law Library that will help help the beginner gain basic information on patent searching.
Patent attorney's use the USPTO site to find patents (prior art) if they know specific details such as patent name or number.
In order to conduct a specific search, it is useful to follow the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) seven step search strategy.
You can also search for patents using PubWest, the database used by patent examiners. However, you can only access that database at a USPTO Depository Library. The USPTO Depository Library in Oklahoma is located at Oklahoma State University (OSU) in Stillwater, Oklahoma. You can contact the library to schedule an appointment with a librarian to get you started on patent searching.
The USPTO offers the following searches to assist in finding a patent:
Also available from the USPTO is a quick reference sheet to assist you in searching for patents.
Once you have located the patent for which you were searching, then you can locate the images associated with that patent by entering the patent number here.