Patent Flipper

Search and view patent documents fast!

Similar to the old “shoe” at the USPTO, Patent Flipper allows you to grab a number (even a classification!) of patents to flip through, so that you can quickly judge relevance by seeing what’s on the patent’s cover.

A typical patent search over the internet requires you to enter your search, wait, get the results as a list of numbers, use the number to access a description on another page, and then use the description page to advance to another page with images. Then, if you have the appropriate viewing software, you can then view those images. With the Patent Flipper you enter the search (or numbers obtained elsewhere) and are presented directly with visual results of the patents that you searched for.

Patent Flipper performs the following searches at the following offices:
•United States Patent and Trade Organization (USPTO) – number and search term searching for design, utility, plant, reissue, defensive publications, statutory invention registration and applications
•Canadian Intellectual Property Organization (CIPO) – number and search term searching for industrial designs and utility patents
•Australia IPO (AIPO – design number searches
•United Kingdom IPO (UKIPO) – design number searches
•World IPO (WIPO) – design number searches
•And more to come.

If you’re an inventor, engineer or designer, you want to quickly evaluate an idea for originality. By showing the front page of published patent documents, Patent Flipper presents a quick means of finding existing art that is similar. If nothing is comparable, you can decide whether to pursue the search in more detail. If there is something similar, you avoid the cost of an expensive search through a firm (at $200 to $2000 per search!) and can move on to your next idea.

If you are a patent agent or lawyer, Patent Flipper will save you and your client’s time by allowing you to quickly skim (and flip!) through patents, giving you a rough idea of the field without having to do the cumbersome multi-step searches presently available through search sites. How you pass on the savings is up to you.

Even if you’re a curious consumer examining a product and wondering what its patents really refer to, this is also a useful tool. Find the product, turn it over, look at the small numbers written or embossed and enter them into Patent Flipper. You know immediately.

You’re visual! Search visually!

Don’t dredge! Flip!