USPTO started a web-based patent search tool, PatentsView, to help users to search issued patents up to 2014 and allow in-depth analysis. As a patent research expert, I explored the capability and usefulness of PatentsView for researching the current hot topic in emerging technologies – internet of things (IoT).

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Patents Research Using USPTO Free Tool PatentsView: Internet of Things Case Study
Alex G. Lee (alexglee@techipm.com)
Recently, USPTO started a web-based patent search tool, PatentsView, to help users to search issued patents up to
2014 and allow in-depth analysis. As a patent research expert, I explored the capability and usefulness of
PatentsView for researching the current hot topic in emerging technologies – internet of things (IoT). For details
regarding IoT, please refer my articles.
If you link to the PatentsView website, you will see the following search window.

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To use the advanced search window, click “any explore” button in Highlighted searches to start your exploration.
Then, you will see the following search window.

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To research the IoT applications in smart homes, smart healthcares and connected cars, type “home health vehicle”
in the quarry box with the search options of “with at least one of the words” and “Utility”. Then, you will see the
following search result.

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Because the patent is listed in order of forward citations, you can find the most influencing patents in a specific
filed of technology. By clicking the “EXPAND PATENT SUMMARY”, you can see more detail information for
each searched patent. Furthermore, by clicking the “VIEW 50 MORE,” you can see all of the search patents in one
window.

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To find patents that are related to a specific IoT application, click RESET button and type “home automation” with
the quarry box with the search options of “with all these words”and “Utility”. Then, you will see the following
search result.
If you clink the title of a specific patent, you can have detail information for the specific patent.

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If you clink the assignee viewing option, you can find which company was the active innovator in the field of
home automation.

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If you clink a specific assignee, you can have detail information for the specific assignee.

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Another interesting feature is to show the visual map of the locations by assignees and inventors. Following
illustrates the locations of the assignees for the “Autonomous Vehicles.”

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You can do many other IoT patent researches by selecting relevant search keywords. Forexample, “Bluetooth” or
“M2M” for the IoT connectivity patents research.

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Even with limited capability of the current beta version of PatentsView, you can do many useful researches for
your specific interests. If future version of PatentsView includes more features (as USPTO planned) such as
offering charts and graphs that illustrate search results, allowing researchers to download large amounts of data and
providing an API for programmers who want to link PatentsView information with other data, it will become a
valuable patent research tool used by many people at free of cost.