To avoid being charged or getting a court injunction prohibiting you from using the patent right to your invention, discovery or creation, solicitors normally advise their clients to conduct a patent search on whether some party has been granted the exclusive right on a similar idea or concept. It is easier to get your solicitor or patent attorney to check and handle the matter for you, but, of course, there will be a fee and costs incurred. To save money from your pocket, why not try to DIY via internet services?

Living up to its reputation as internet leader and global search giant, Google provides users an instant way to check their patent rights via Google Patent Search. There are more than 7 millions patents that can be browsed or checked via the Google Patent Search engine. Most importantly, it is free.

Another useful site which offers the same service is Patents.com. Patents.com is a single portal where users from around the world can conduct patent search on US Patents, US Design Patents, US Patent Applications and European Patents in various languages such as English, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, etc. This patent search engine is powerful, fast, easy to use and it supports the basic Boolean operators AND, OR and NOT.

Besides the two above, users can also get the result by checking with the US Patent Office for patent rights or browse through the Europe network of patents database for the result. Good luck with that invention!