Patent Lookup

Search and check the live status of any U.S. utility patent by its 7-8 digit patent number — filing date, grant status, inventors, and attorney of record, straight from USPTO's own Patent File Wrapper system, not a cached or resold copy.

Enter a patent number above and press Look up.

A free patent status search, direct from the source: this tool answers "is this patent actually granted?" and "where does this application stand?" using USPTO's own live prosecution data. Patent numbers are assigned only once a patent is granted — before that, an application is tracked by a separate application number. This tool checks status by granted patent number only; coverage starts at applications filed in 2001, so older patents (e.g. Amazon's 1990s-era "1-Click" patent) won't be found here.

What you get

Grant & status: Current prosecution/grant status, filing date, and status date — queried live, not a periodic snapshot.
Inventors & attorney: Named inventor(s) and the attorney/law firm of record, as filed with USPTO.
Source & attribution: Every response carries source and attribution fields. Patent File Wrapper data is a U.S. government work and public domain under USPTO's own terms of use, credited on every response rather than presented as if it originated here.

Common uses for a patent status check

Confirming a patent was actually granted (not just applied-for) before relying on it in a contract or listing; tracking an application's progress through USPTO's examination process without logging into the Open Data Portal directly; and pulling filing dates, inventors, or the attorney of record for a patent you already have the number for.

What's deliberately out of scope

Unlike Lens.org, Espacenet, or Google Patents, this tool does not return a citation graph, patent family (continuations/divisionals as a linked graph), a single clean legal-status field, or drawings/images — USPTO's live Patent File Wrapper API is application/prosecution-centric, not built for those. It also doesn't cover design, plant, or reissue patents (utility patents only for now), and doesn't search by inventor/title (see the FAQ below).

FAQ

Where do I find a patent number?

Search USPTO's own Patent Public Search (ppubs.uspto.gov) or Google Patents by invention name or inventor first — this tool looks up status for a patent number you already have, it does not search by name.

Can I look up a pending application instead of a granted patent?

Not yet. This tool takes a granted patent number only; a pending application is tracked under a separate application number, and a lookup-by-application-number path is not implemented here rather than guessed at.

Why doesn't this show citations or a patent family?

USPTO's live Patent File Wrapper API is built around prosecution/application data, not the disambiguated citation-graph dataset a discontinued API (PatentsView) used to expose. Building that would need a different, currently-unavailable data source — see docs/trademark-patent-lookup-research.md for the full research.

About this tool

The patent lookup retrieves the status of a United States utility patent by patent number, including its grant status, filing date, inventors and the attorney of record.

How it works

Results come directly from the USPTO Open Data Portal at the time of your search, so you see the record as the patent office currently holds it.

What to keep in mind

Coverage is U.S. utility patents. It does not report on foreign filings, does not evaluate validity or infringement, and maintenance-fee or assignment details may be incomplete. Anything legally significant should be confirmed with the patent office or an attorney.

Common uses

Engineers and founders use it to verify that a cited patent exists and is in force, to find the inventors named on a filing, and to check dates when reading prior art.