According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, a patent is an intellectual property right granted by the US government to an inventor: | ||
|
Searching for patents is called a patent search, a patentability search, or a prior art search. To learn more about searching and understanding patents, try these resources: |
Start by asking, "If these data exist (and they may not!), which organization would be the most likely to collect them?" You might have to piece the data together from a number of secondary sources if no one collects the exact data you need. Remember that data and statistics can often be found in journal articles, so don't forget to search article databases. |
Statistics can help put your project in context -- for example, if you're working on a project to purify drinking water, you might want to know how many people in a particular country have access to clean drinking water. |
A gateway to statistics collected by United States federal agencies.