“The objective of ArchPatent is providing the simplest, most intuitive USPTO search tool.” ~Tony Rainoldi
ArchPatent is a new service for searching U.S. patent information. It offers a number of tools for searching for patents and then refining search results according to various parameters. The basic service is free or you can upgrade to ArchPatent Pro to unlock additional, premium features.
I’ve been trying out this new service and with ArchPatent, you can do a Quick Search or an Advanced Search of multiple patent fields simultaneously. You can search for the full patent text by keyword or by patent number, title, inventor, assignee, examiner, and attorney. You can put together complex search strings using Boolean logic, proximity and wildcard operators, and keyword stemming.
A quick search of the word “metabolite” brings up a search result of 29365 patents. Change that typing Metabolite into the assignee field and the search brings up US Pat. Nos. 6,207,651, 5,563,126, 6,297,224 and 5,795,873, all assigned to Metabolite Laboratories, Inc. But, type in Metabolite into the complete assignee records field and it pulls up an additional patent, US 6,528,496, which was assigned after issue.
What seems to make ArchPatent convenient is the ability to search within results without having to go back and start over. Once you’ve entered a search, you can use filters to begin to narrow the search results in various ways to get you only the results you need. You can filter by US Classification, Original Assignee, Reassignee, Current Assignee, Examiner, Agent, Applicant and Most Referenced.
The only downside is that applying filters — at least the times I have used the service — sometimes seems to hang and takes longer than my limited patience can tolerate. The service seems to still be a work in progress with some features marked “Coming Soon” and not yet available.
Another convenient feature is the Personal Workspace. As you are working with searches, you can keep track of your work by saving patents and searches to a custom workspace. You have the ability to go back over past searches, which have been automatically saved. Access to workspaces is free with basic registration.
ArchPatent Pro subscribers are able to track changes to the patent database as the USPTO publishes new patent applications and issued grants. You can set an alert for a keyword, patent classifications, a competitor’s name or even set one to look for changes to assignment records.
You can download full patent images as PDFs. ArchPatent links cited references to individual patent detail pages and to patents referencing a particular patent since it was granted.
The ArchPatentPro version adds some useful fields but costs $39.99/month or $239.88/year. With the Pro version, you can see all the results (not just the top 10) and you get special features like being able to export the results into a .csv spreadsheet file. You can choose the columns to include in the export including the patent number, invention title, issue date, filing date, current assignees, assignees at issue, applicants, and a link to the AchPatent Detail Page.
You can try out ArchPatent at: http://archpatent.com/
