How to do an effective patent search?

[Dudette]

My boss has asked me to do a patent search to find out if he has a patentable idea. It relates to crossbreeding strains of barley to increase yields and robustness. I've never done a patent search before, and it seems like a daunting task. I'm beginning at my university library, where I expect to find a patent database, although I'm not sure how extensive yet. Any tips on how to make such a search more efficient, and places to look?

[uhp]

Hey Dudette, this is a link for Google Patent search specifically designed to search for patents.
But i would like to suggest you, its very difficult to do a patent search and find out if your idea is patentable or not just by reading the results on these patents search.
Reason - We have some ideas worth patenting and we consulted some one (acquaintance who has his own patents) he said he had to go to a lawyer he gave all his ideas that he wanted to patent and he said the lawyer will do the work of finding if any idea is already patent or not. And it might cost around 10K USD or more (ofcourse if you are in USA).

Share your views on this.

[bcnu]

Just looking at patents is a start, but is only the tip of the proverbial ice burg. To be patentable, it has to be "new and non-obvious" when compared against any patent ever granted anywhere in the world, any patent application ever filed (and published) and any other publication in any language anywhere in the world, not to mention any other device or process ever used in public, or their equivalents, or any obvious combinations or improvements of any of the above.

You cannot do a "patentability search" without professional guidance.

@StephenWeinstein's ideas are valuable, but failed to mention that you cannot search any US patents on the USPTO database prior to about 1983 (only by serial number), but the google.com/patents has a much better inventory, as do other patent search engines. Again, this has VERY LITTLE to do with whether something is patentable, since the vast majority of existing inventions are NOT patented, yet their existence or prior disclosure prevent anyone else from ever patenting anything similar.

[StephenWeinstein]

You don't have to go to the university library.

The entire database of every U.S. patent, for over 200 years, go back all the way to 1790 is online. Go to http://www.uspto.gov/patents/process/sea...#heading-1

A patent search will not tell if he has a patentable idea. To see how to tell if he has a patentable idea, go to http://www.uspto.gov/inventors/patents.jsp#heading-4

If he still wants you to do a patent search, even though it won't tell if he has a patentable idea:

For a video on how to do a patent search, go to http://www.uspto.gov/video/cbt/ptrcsearching/

For step by step instructions, go to http://www.uspto.gov/products/library/pt.../step7.jsp