Innovation and Entrepreneurship

European Patent Office
Publication coverage: 1836 - Present.
Espacenet is free to use. It allows PDF downloads of patent documents. The database includes 60 million patent documents from over 70 countries.

Canadian Intellectual Property Office
Canadian patent records, 1869 to present; full-text documents, 1920 to present.
Access 93 years of patent descriptions and images and search, retrieve and study more than 2,140,000 patent documents.

United States Patent and Trademark Office
U.S. patents, 1790 to present; Published applications, 2001 to present.
Search and download patents for free. Patents before 1976 can be retrieved by number, date and classification. Note, a TIFF viewer is required to view/print patent documents.

World Intellectual Property Organization
International patent applications: 1978 to present.
Search 30 million patent documents including 2.2 million published international patent applications (PCT).

AU, EP, US and WO patent documents: 1970s to present.
Patent Lens is a free public resource of searchable patents worldwide.

Google patents includes patents submitted either in the U.S. or European Patents Offices. You can search, read, and view patents. Note, to view use Art Finder.