Help with US patent number validation

Life Technology
1

I need to check an advertised product’s US patent number. I went on the US patent office site and checked the number but it gave me the result of a totally different product, processed in 1988. I was surprised to see this product advertising a recent successful application, but after reading some posts here about the US patent office, it may have happened.

Is it possible for two products to have the same patent number in the US? Or could the number be something else being “used” as a patent number?

2

Each patent should have a distinct patent number

Things to check is whether it was a patent number, to be cautious a full patent search should be carried out.

Try searching for the company name…

If it is in the US such labelling (“to decieve”) is against the law and may invalidate any valid patent

http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2008/11/constitutionali.html (I havent read this yet, too busy with EU law)

Im pretty sure here there is no legal obligation against false marking under the IP laws, but you can normally get these claims removed for false advertising or using consumer protection law (should this be a problem)

Also, you should search the “patent family” once you have one valid patent to check whether other IP exists that could be used against you

Finally follow this link for a basic intro to patent searches

http://ep.espacenet.com/

3

[quote=“asiababy”]I need to check an advertised product’s US patent number. I went on the US patent office site and checked the number but it gave me the result of a totally different product, processed in 1988. I was surprised to see this product advertising a recent successful application, but after reading some posts here about the US patent office, it may have happened.

Is it possible for two products to have the same patent number in the US? Or could the number be something else being “used” as a patent number?[/quote]

A single patent can cover a whole bunch of products. Read the patent claims, since the I.P. right that finally issues can be very different from what is ostensibly presented in the drawings. .