Speaker 1: So you've invented something new and you're thinking about building a product or getting a patent on your new invention. Well how do you know it's really new? How do you know that someone hasn't invented it before you? Well maybe what you need is a patent search. Now it's possible to hire a patent attorney like me of course to do the search for you, but it's also relatively easy to do a quick and dirty search yourself. And so in this video I want to teach you how to do a quick and simple patent search really in three simple steps maybe taking less than three minutes. Hi my name is John Ferrell. I'm a Silicon Valley patent attorney. Welcome back to my channel. Now the first step in determining whether your invention is new or not is really pretty obvious. Just go to your favorite search engine and type in some keywords related to your invention. And let's say that your invention is an automatic transmission for bicycles. Then go to bing or go to chrome and type in the words automatic transmission for bicycles and just see what turns up. Now if your keywords are like most you can be sure that the search engine will find something. It may find search results not containing all of the words. For example it may contain automatic transmissions for bicycles but scratch out the word automatic or scratch out the word transmission. And of course this isn't really helpful in determining whether someone else has an automatic transmission for bicycles. So be careful about the search results that come up and along the same lines don't get too freaked out if it looks like somebody else has made your invention before you. It's important to carefully look at the search results that come up because oftentimes the search results contain aspirational or hypothetical inventions that somebody would like to see but actually where no invention currently exists. So just be careful when analyzing the search results from an internet search. Now related to this internet search I also like to search pictures where I'll type in the word picture colon and then the words automatic transmission for bicycle or whatever the invention is. I just think that pictures are a good way to search an invention. It really gives me some idea of what others are doing and what others are thinking about products that currently exist in the marketplace. So when you're doing the internet search using your web browser also search for pictures because I think this will be super helpful. Now a second type of search that you can do and one that I think is very helpful and one that I do as a professional often is to go to my web browser go to your web browser and type in the words google patents. Now this will take you to a database of all of the existing issued patents as well as patent applications contained in the google database and also there are quite a few foreign patents there as well. Now once you get to the google patent database in the search bar type in the key words of your invention. Again something like automatic transmission for bicycles or really whatever phrases might describe your invention. It's a natural language search bar so you can enter whatever words are appropriate and it will try to parse your words in a way that will most closely search your invention. Now obviously the advantage of using the google patents database is that you get patents back and you'll be able to search a stack of patents that are most closely related to your invention and these can be super helpful and as I said as a patent attorney I really like that it allows natural language searching and it just makes it really easy for me to find lots of variations on a single invention. Now again with the patents and maybe even more so with the patents you have to be very careful when interpreting the prior art that it turns up. Patents are very difficult to read and sometimes it's hard to know whether a prior patent is describing your invention or a related invention that's just performed differently or in a different way. So be very careful when trying to interpret other patents and don't get too discouraged if you find patents that look like they might be close. If you're concerned about it, if you're worried about whether someone's patent is really the same as your invention, talk to a patent professional and have them help you work through the prior art. This can often be done in a 30-minute consultation and can really ease your mind with respect to your search results. Now the third step for the protocol or process I might suggest to you for a quick and dirty patent search is to utilize the new tool ChatGPT. Now this is an incredibly powerful tool and I've really enjoyed playing with it. Although as you might have discerned from some of my prior videos, I still have a lot of concerns about the privacy issues related to ChatGPT. So when you use ChatGPT, two things to keep in mind. Number one, be very careful about the search terms that you use in your invention. You don't want to teach ChatGPT what your invention is. And then the second issue related to ChatGPT is this issue of hallucination. One problem with ChatGPT is it's trained to talk. If it can't find text that relates accurately to your invention, it will just make stuff up. It will hallucinate inventions just to have something to say. It may be pure fiction but it will always try to provide you with a response. So typing in for example automatic transmissions for bicycles, it's going to produce some results. It will tell you about different manufacturers producing different products with product names. Just make sure that those products are real. For example, if it gives a product name made by Shimano of Japan, make sure you go to the Shimano website and verify that that product really exists. That said, I've really been impressed by the results that ChatGPT produces. And you have to understand that ChatGPT is trained with just about all of the text that was ever written. And so if the word automatic transmissions for bicycles for example shows up in its database, it's going to be able to produce results containing those words. So I find it useful. It's interesting. It's not always accurate. Oh and one more thing about ChatGPT, aside from the fact that there may be privacy issues, is that ChatGPT at least as of this date with ChatGPT4, the training database is time limited as of some date in 2021. So it's not yet connected to the internet with current data, although it will be soon reportedly. So when you're doing searches related to inventions, prior inventions on your invention, on your new product, just keep in mind that the data it's producing is probably good only until about 2021. And by the way, this relates to patent applications as well. Patent applications are generally not made public until 18 months after their priority date. So there's a big block of patent applications that we just don't have access to and that we can't search. And then finally, although this isn't the preferred method probably for most people looking for a quick and dirty search, you can go to the USPTO website and use their search tool to help you find patents and patent applications that have either been filed or issued. Now the problem with the USPTO website is that the search engine is not nearly as easy to use as that of Google. So although it's very powerful and very granular with respect to what you can search within a patent application or an issued patent, I just find that the Google search engine for most people will be easier to use. Okay, that's about the quick and dirty patent search that you can do yourself. Now if the patent is important, let's say you're in a startup and you're raising money or looking for venture financing or maybe you're about to start manufacturing, you still may want to go to your patent attorney and have a professional patent search performed. It will be a lot more thorough and your patent attorney will be able to help you walk through the patent search results and understand what the prior art really contains. Okay, that's all I have with respect to searches. Now then the next question is, even if your invention is new and someone hasn't invented before you or come up with the same idea before you, is it really something you should patent? Should you get a patent on your invention? I talk about this question and give you some ideas to think about in this next video. I'll see you over there.