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FAQs

DOE Patents General FAQs

What is DOE Patents?

DOE Patents, developed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), is a search tool for discovering patent information resulting from DOE-funded research and development (R&D).


What does DOE Patents contain?

DOE Patents contains issued patents funded by DOE through a grant, contract, cooperative agreement, or similar type of funding mechanism. Identification of patents to include is primarily based on a customized search of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Publicly available patent information from DOE R&D, historic and current, is presented here, excluding patent applications. DOE Patents consists of bibliographic records, with full text where available, either via a PDF file or an HTML link to the record at the USPTO.

New USPTO content is examined by OSTI, looking at specific information/metadata including the research organizations involved, sponsoring organizations, patent assignees, and contract numbers to determine if there is DOE funding. For more information about DOE Patents metadata, please see "What information is found on the Full Record page in DOE Patents?" If DOE-funded research helped lead to the issued patent, then citation information and a link to the issued patent record is added to the DOE Patents collection.

These DOE-funded issued patent records are also discoverable in OSTI.GOV, the primary search tool for DOE-funded science, technology, and engineering research information. In addition, OSTI.GOV contains issued patents of interest to DOE researchers, funded by other organizations, some issued international patents, and a small number of patent applications. To learn more about these records, please see the OSTI.GOV FAQs.


How many patents are in this collection? Does the collection include all of DOE's patents?

DOE Patents provides comprehensive coverage of patents resulting from DOE funding, one way to demonstrate the Department's contribution to scientific progress in the physical sciences and other disciplines. Publicly available patent information from DOE R&D, historic and current, is presented here, excluding patent applications. Currently, there are more than 40,000 searchable patent records here.


Does this collection include the full text for each patent?

If the full text is available, it will be indicated with a "Full Text Available" link in the bottom right corner of each record on the search results screen. For some patents, the full text is hosted by OSTI and available directly from our database. Additionally, there are many records that contain links to the full text of the patent at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The "Full Text Available" link will direct the user to either the OSTI hosted version or the USPTO hosted version.


What time frame is covered by DOE Patents?

This collection demonstrates the Department's contribution to scientific progress from the 1940's to today.


Does the U.S. Government have exclusive rights to these inventions?

Some of these inventions are government-owned. Many are owned by other research organizations or partners. Rights information is provided in the assignee field.


What is OSTI?

The Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), a unit of the Office of Science, fulfills agency-wide responsibilities to collect, preserve, and disseminate both unclassified and classified scientific and technical information (STI) emanating from DOE-funded research and development (R&D) activities at DOE national laboratories and facilities and at universities and other institutions nationwide. OSTI provides access to DOE STI through a suite of web-based, searchable discovery tools and through other commonly used search engines, offering ever-expanding sources of R&D information to DOE, the research community, and the science-attentive public.


Where can I find information about doing business with DOE?

You can find information about doing business with DOE by visiting this Web site: https://www.energy.gov/osdbu/small-business-services/guidance-small-businesses-how-do-business-department-energy.


How can I find additional information on the patenting process?

For information on the patenting process, please visit the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) at www.uspto.gov.


Where can I find patents that are not related to DOE?

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) maintains a searchable database of patent full text from 1976 forward, and full-page patent images from 1790 forward.


Search FAQs

How do I search DOE Patents?

DOE Patents works much like a Google search, where you can enter your terms into the basic search box to retrieve results. You can search for a single term or phrase by putting in "double quotes." Additionally, DOE Patents supports Boolean and proximity operators, wildcards, and parentheses for grouping:

Boolean Operators — DOE Patents recognizes the operators AND, OR, and NOT.

  • Example: A search for water AND "climate change" will return results that include both the term water and the phrase climate change.

  • Example: A search for water OR "climate change" will return results that include either the term water or the phrase climate change.

  • Example: A search for water NOT "climate change" will return results that include the term water but not the phrase climate change.


Include and Exclude Operators — using the + (plus) and - (minus) symbols either include or exclude, respectively, a search term in the search results.

  • Example: A search for energy +water will return results that include the term energy and also include the term water.

  • Example: A search for energy -water will return results that include the term energy but not the term water.


Proximity Operators

  • Example: "nuclear energy"~3 will return results where nuclear and energy are within three words of each other in the bibliographic record.


Parentheses for Grouping

  • Example: A search for water AND ("climate change" OR energy) will return results that include both the term water and either the phrase climate change or the term energy.

How do I use the Advanced Search?

The advanced search will allow you to perform more complex searches, offering you a number of fields, such as Title, Inventor, Patent Number, or Issue Date to help you refine your search results.

Advanced Search Fields:

All Fields — Searches all bibliographic data

Patent Title — Searches only the titles of patents.

Abstract — Searches the patent abstract.

Assignee — Searches the name of the person or entity who owns the patent.

Inventor(s) — Searches all inventor name(s), including ORCID if available.

Patent Number — Searches only the number assigned by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to applications that have been issued as patents.

Patent Classification (CPC) — Selecting one of the Classifications or sub-Classifications (displayed by clicking the icon) from the drop-down list, returns DOE Patents records having that Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC).

Patent Application Number — Searches only the number assigned by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to applications assigned a filing date.

Contract Number — Searches the DOE award number under which the invention was either partially or fully funded.

Subject — Searches the standardized subject categories associated with the patent.

Research Org — Searches the name(s) of the organization(s) that was funded and performed the research leading to the patent.

Sponsoring Org — Searches the name(s) of the DOE program office(s) that provided the funding for the research leading to the patent.

Issue Date — Searches for patents issued within a specific time frame. Select the starting date or ending date from the drop down calendar OR type MM/DD/YYYY, e.g. 01/01/2014.

Example:

Issued from: 01/01/2014 retrieves all patents issued on or after 1/1/2014.

Issued to: 01/01/2014 retrieves all patents published on or before 1/1/2014.

How do I search by inventor?

You may use the basic search box to search by an inventor's full name (using quotations for phrase searching), inventor last name, or ORCID. Additionally, there is a field on the advanced search screen that allows you to search by name or ORCID in combination with any other advanced search field.


What information is found on the Full Record page in DOE Patents?

Bibliographic data/metadata is information unique to and descriptive of a particular document. Basic bibliographic data for patents includes the title, inventor(s), assignee, patent number, and issue date. This metadata improves online search and retrieval, and helps ensure preservation of a patent. Below is a list of the metadata that OSTI collects and that is searchable in DOE Patents:

Abstract* — A brief summary of the patented invention.

Assignee* — The name of the individual or entity to whom ownership of the patent was assigned and the time of patent issue.

Contract Number* — The DOE contract number under which the patent research was conducted.

Country of Publication — The country in which the patent was issued.

Inventor(s)* — The inventor(s) of the patent.

Issue Date* — The date the patent was officially issued by the the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

Language — The language in which the patent was issued.

OSTI ID — The unique identifier assigned by OSTI to each patent record in DOE Patents.

Patent Application Number* — The identifying number assigned by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to applications that received a filing date.

Patent Classification (CPC) — Where possible, DOE Patents displays Classifications via the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) system, a bilateral classification system jointly developed by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the European Patent Office (EPO). Some DOE Patents records list additional CPC's under the Show More link.

Patent Number(s)* — The unique number(s) assigned to applications that have issued as patents.

Related Identifiers — (References, Cited by, and Other Related Research) — other documents, datasets, or software applications that relate to the resource.

Research Org.* — The name(s) of the organization(s) that performed the research that led to the invention.

Resource Relation — The date the application was filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

Sponsoring Org.* — The name(s) of the DOE program office(s) that provided the funding for the research that led to the invention.

Subject* — Words or phrases that describe the invention as summarized in the patent. This includes subject categories picked from a standard authority list.

Title* — The title of the patent.

*Asterisks indicate fields that can be searched using the advanced search fields.

Can I sort or refine my results?

Yes, you may refine your results by Inventor, Issue Date, or Research Organization on the left side of the search results screen. Sort options on the search results page include sorting by relevance or by patent issue date. Sort options can be found on the top right of the search results screen.


How do I register for a DOE Patents account? What are the benefits of being a registered user?

To create a DOE Patents account, select the Create Account link at the top right of your screen and enter the requested information. You are required to provide your email address and create a password. Each account must be registered with a unique email address. After registration, you will be taken to your account management screen. If you are a DOE community user, a DOE federal employee, contractor or grantee, you are invited to provide some additional information at the time of registration, or through your account management screen.

A DOE Patents account allows you to save records, save searches, categorize records into lists, export bibliographies, and create alerts.

If you have already created an account through another of OSTI's search tools (such as OSTI.GOV or PAGES), you do not need to register for another account through DOE Patents. You may use your login credentials to access all of OSTI's search tools.


Can I save or download the results of a search?

Yes. If the item is available electronically, clicking the "Full Text Available" link shown at the bottom right corner of each record on the results screen will download the document.

You may also save the bibliographic/metadata information for a set of results as a CSV/Excel, JSON, or XML file from the top right of the search results screen.

From an individual bibliographic/metadata details page you can export the metadata to Endnote or save it in RIS, JSON, CSV/Excel, or XML format from the left side of the details page. You also have the option to generate a citation for the record in various formats, including MLA, APA, Chicago, and BibTeX.


How can I view the details about a patent?

By clicking the title of an article in the search results lists you will be directed to the patent record, providing bibliographic information, patent accessibility options, as well as citation format and metadata export options.


What if I have more questions?

If you have questions or comments, please feel free to contact us.