About
Searching and Viewing Patents:
Our
website provides full
text for patents issued from 1976 to the present.
We provide TIFF images for all patents from 1790 (YES,
REALLY 1790) to the present. You can search on text in all elements (fields) of the patent or select
those fields you wish to search only for patents issued since
1976.
You can only search on patent numbers and/or classification
codes for
the pre-1976 patents.
To view the images for any patent you must
(1) download a
TIFF image
plug in (viewer) and
(2) run the downloaded executable file to install a TIFF image
plug in that supports G4 compression;
(3) when you get a text search result based for a patent
number, locate the image
button near the top of the screen to launch the viewer.
The system will download the images one page at a time. More extensive
Instructions for obtaining and using a free plugin from different vendors
are contained on "How
to Access Full Page Images."
The biggest problem people have when installing a viewer is that
they forget to close the browser application and run the viewer program's
executable
file
after downloading it in order to actually install the viewer plug-in.
If you have run the file and still have problems, try restarting
your PC.
For experienced users, you may lose or change the MIME-type file association
for TIFF images when performing a system upgrade or installing new software.
If that happens you
may need to reinstall your chosen viewer. |