To Use Easy Search:  Click on the "Easy Search" tab and enter a word or phrase in the search box.  Select whether to search (1) patents or (2) applications, and if applications, whether to exclude from the results any applications that have resulted in issued patents.  Select the number of Documents to return then click the "Search" button.  The Easy Search algorithm searches the Title, Abstract and Claims of U.S. patents and published U.S. patent applications and returns a list of patents and/or applications that contain the search terms in ANY of those fields.  The results are returned in order based on a weighting algorithm.

To search by number for a U.S. patent or published U.S. patent application simply enter the number in the following format:

• PN/6000000 for U.S. Patent 6,000,000
• PN/20040111742 for Published U.S. Patent Application 20040111742

Entering more than one word searches for the occurrence of BOTH words - e.g., tennis ball -> searches for patents that have "tennis" in the Title, Abstract or Claims AND "ball" in the Title, Abstract or Claims.   Put quotation marks around a phrase to search for that exact phrase, - e.g. "tennis ball".   See also, Search Syntax.