One website that is offering a patent search is Patents.com, a simple free website that lets users search US Patents, US Design Patents, US Patent Applications and European Patents. The search supports the basic Boolean operators AND, OR and NOT.

Instead of entering text a user can also enter an application, publication or patent number right away and search for inventors, attorneys, agents, assignees and owners. Three additional search forms are available.

The advanced search accepts a data range and additional variables like the assistant and primary examiner or foreign references.

Expert Search combines abbreviations with wildcards and special searches allowing advanced and complex queries. Bulk Search finally allows to search for multiple patents at once by using a comma delimited list of patent numbers.

Alternatives would be a search directly at the US Patent Office which uses an awful interface from the 90s, at Google Patent Search or Europe’s Patent Search.

One area where Patents.com fails is information about their database and source of information. Are they as reliable as the official sources? How often are their patents updated, do they always publish the latest right away? Questions that only a patent attorney could answer.