If your list of patents is lengthy, you may wish to use the Official Gazette of the United States Patent & Trademark Office to save time. The Official Gazette provides brief descriptive information as well as the title, inventor's name, assignee's name, a drawing and one example claim for each patent.

Patent searchers use the convenience of the Official Gazette to go through a lengthy list of patents in a short time. Most searchers can look up about 100 patents in thirty to forty minutes; this is significantly more timely than finding and viewing 100 patents on the Internet.

Patrons may view nearly all issues of the Official Gazette from 1900 to present in hard copy, or issues from July 2, 2002 to present on CD-ROM (Call number: T223.A2302) at the Penn State Schreyer Business Library. The Offical Gazette is also online at the USPTO website, beginning with the July 2, 2002 volume. Patents are arranged in the Official Gazette by patent number. Each weekly issue contains brief information about every patent issued during that week, which is currently about 3000 patents.

When visiting the library to use the Official Gazette, remember to bring a list of those patents you would like to research; this will save time. The descriptions and drawings in the Gazette will provide details and additional information useful to the patent researcher.