Patent Search: Most patents are improvements upon existing patented ideas, so don’t be discouraged by finding similar inventions– submit the most related/overlapping patents. Conversely, very rarely does a patent have no prior art (related patents), so you should find the closest prior art and submit it.
Present at least 3 related patents and 3 related products in your team’s weekly presentation.

For each result include:

1. Basic information. For patents give the title, patent number, and date. For products give the model name and manufacturer.
2. Figure from the patent or of the product. For patents there is usually one on the first page that is used as for an overall description. (See USPTO for browser plug-ins to read the compressed tiff files.)
3. Brief description of patent or product. (Patents are not easy to read and all group members should have the experience of reading and deciphering a patent!)
4. Be prepared to discuss salient features and differences with your concepts
5. Do not depend on external links for references – you may include them as a supplement but you need to copy relevant material to your web site. You can dowload patents at the above sites.