Google Patents Help

Understanding a search result

Each Google Patents result represents an individual patent. We display results based on their relevance to the specific search terms you’ve entered. We display a number of details about each patent in the list of results.

Explanation of terms

1. U.S. Patent Number: The patent office assigns a unique number to each patent. For applications, the application number is preceded by “US Pat. App”.
2. Filing Date: The filing date is the date on which the patent application was filed with the USPTO.
3. Issue Date: The issue date is the date on which the patent was granted by the USPTO. Only patent grants have an issue date.
4. Assignee Name: The assignee is the person or organization to which the rights of the patent are assigned.
5. Patent Snippet: We include a snippet of text from the patent to show where the specific search terms were found.
6. Date Restrict: We offer two ways to search for patents in a particular date range: filing date and issue date.
7. Patent Applications: We offer you the option to limit search results to only issued patents or applications. Applications have “US Pat. App” before their application number in search results.
8. Patent Type: Most US patents are “Utility” patents. Patents of other types have letters at the beginning of their patent numbers, described here: www.uspto.gov/patft/help/contents.htm. Because we infer the patent type from the grant number, we only search granted patents when you specify a type.
9. Advanced Search: Our advanced search page has additional features, including search by patent number, title, inventor, assignee, and classification.

About This Patent page

Each patent in Google Patents has its own page, which consists of several sections. When we don’t have information for a given section, we do not include that section in the About page.

Explanation of terms

1. Links into the patent: Click on these links to go directly to the patent Abstract, Drawings, Description, or Claims.
2. Search inside the patent: To search for words inside this patent, use this text box. The box at the top of the page starts a new search over all patents.
3. Patent number and dates: Here you will find the patent number, filing date, and issue date. Also, if this page is for an application that has been granted, there will be a link here to the corresponding grant (or vice versa for a grant with a corresponding application).
4. Inventor/Assignees: Lists inventors and assignees for this patent.
5. Patent Classification: Lists US and international patent classification codes. For more information on classifications, please visit USPTO’s patent classification resources.
6. Citations: Lists other patents that were cited by the current patent.
7. Referenced by: Lists other patents that reference the current patent.
8. Claims: Lists the specific claims made by the patent.
9. Drawings: Displays thumbnails of drawings in the body of the patent.