Intellectual Property

Information about the three basic forms of intellectual property: patents, trademarks, and copyright.

General

• Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center.
• Electronic Frontier Foundation's Intellectual Property Page.
• World Intellectual Property Organization

Patents

• U.S. Patent & Trademark Office Home Page.
• USPTO Web Patent Databases: Full-text of patents since 1976, full-page images since 1790; also patent applications published since March 15, 2001.
• Google Patent Search. Search the USPTO database using Google's easy to use interface. Covers the entire collection of patents made available by the USPTO-from patents issued in the 1790s through those issued in the middle of 2006.
• General Information Concerning Patents: USPTO brochure.
• Canadian Patents Database: Canadian Intellectual Property Office. Access to over 75 years of Canadian patent data.
• Espacenet from EPO (European Patent Office). Espacenet offers free access to more than 70 million patent documents worldwide, containing information about inventions and technical developments from 1836 to today.

Trademarks

• Trademarks main page from the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.
• Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS), online database from the USPTO.
• Trademark Law Materials at Cornell University Law School.
• Basic Facts about Trademarks: USPTO brochure.

Copyright

• United States Copyright Office Home Page.
  • Search Copyright Records: Registrations and Documents. Web-based search that covers U.S. copyright registrations since 1978. Also contains a link to the more comprehensive LOCIS database.
• Catalog of Copyright Entries
  • Stanford's Copyright Renewal Database is a searchable database of copyright renewal records received by the US Copyright Office between 1950 and 1992 for books published in the US between 1923 and 1963.
  • Portions have been digitized and placed online at the Online Books Page.
• Copyright Treaty of the World Intellectual Property Organization (adopted 12/20/96).