Patent and Trademark Information by 
Patent Law by Receive expert patent searching strategies as well as patent, trademark, and copyright guidance from the Syracuse University College of Law Innovation Law Center (ILC) in collaboration with the Blackstone LaunchPad at Syracuse University Libraries. To schedule a time with the ILC, email LaunchPad@syr.edu.
These tools allow you to do quick, keyword, searches for patents. You can also search by inventor and assignee (the person or company that holds the rights to that patent).
Patent classification is a way the that patent examiners arrange documents according to the patent's technical features. Classification searching allows searchers to quickly find a document disclosing the invention identical or similar to the invention for which a patent is claimed. Patents may have more than one classification.
These databases that you may already be using also include patents:
Allows users to search Inspec, Compendex, GEOBASE, and GeoRef, simultaneously or alone. Covers the fields of physics, electronics, computing, control engineering and information technology and includes journal articles, conference proceedings, patents, and dissertations from 1898 to present.
Below are a few resources recommended by the above article when conducting a trademark search:
A few key definitions excerpted from the Oxford English Dictionary:
"...A licence conferring the sole right to manufacture, sell, or deal in a product or commodity; (now) spec. a licence from a government conferring for a set period the sole right to make, use, or sell some process or invention; a right conferred in this way."
"...A general name for property (such as patents, trademarks, and copyright material) which is the product of invention or creativity, and which does not exist in a tangible, physical form."
"...To give (a person) permission to (do something)."
"...A mark (secured by legal registration or, in some countries, established by use) used by a manufacturer or trader to distinguish his goods from similar wares of other firms; usually a distinctive device or figure, a fancy name or trade name, or the name of an individual or firm, marked or impressed on the article or upon the package, etc., in or with which it is sold."
