Paging Rusty in the Patent Office basement

[Aunt Phil]

Is there a way to dig out pending patents down there where you hide?

[Papaw]

Does this help muddy the water any? http://www.avvo.com/legal-guides/ugc/how-come-i-cannot-find-patent-pending-info

Utility patent applications are published generally 18 months from the earliest priority date claimed in the application. Design patent applications are not published at all. Before publication, the file is kept secret and 3rd parties cannot get information on the application.  If you do not find anything under the company name, some of the possiblities could be:

1.  It has been less than 18 months;

2.  The pending application is a design patent application;

3.  You looked in the wrong place (there are 2 separate databases, one for issued patents, and one for published applications);

4.  It is also possible that the applicant requested no-publication (generally the applicant has to forego foreign filing of the application); or

5.  Since all U.S. patent applications are filed in the name(s) of the inventor(s) individually, searching by company name would not produce results if there was no assignment of the application to the company.

One plausible alternative (if you still cannot find the information) would be to order a right to use search.  But that is typically quite expensive (thousands of dollars, depending on the technology), and can only be justified for major product lines.

There are companies that will search for you at some cost. I think LegalZoom does it.
You can do a patent search either through www.google.com/patents or at the www.uspto.gov website (the patent office's website). If something is patent pending, it means you'll see the patent application, and not the issued patent.

Check out http://www.patentengineers.com
It's got some information on patents and searching for prior art that you may find useful.
Source(s):
http://www.patentengineers.com

[Aunt Phil]

Tis a very muddy playing field there Pawpaw.

Ya think Rusty got captured down there in the cellar and is being mudwaterboarded?

[rusty]

Sorry, i was painting doors...Grrr

What papaw said tho, you can not read the applications in the US until published....
This is not so much because it matters in the US, The US follows the 'first invented' rule, but some countries follow the 'first filed' rule, so the US treats patents consistantly by not publishing them for a while....

The problem is people used to read patent applications, rephrase them, and then file claim it was their idea...
You can probably blame the Brits, every dirty patent trick ever thought up was tried there first -P
*ducking*