Collection Content
From this page, you can search four collections, one at a time. Results may differ from a search conducted on the actual database. Below is a summary of the accessible content.
CIPO (excluding databases)
This collection contains most of the static CIPO Web site content, including the various information guides. At this time, not all content on the site is searchable; however, steps are being taken to rectify this situation. To find out what is searchable, see the Summary of Searchable Content.
Canadian Patents Database
This collection lets you access over 75 years of patent descriptions and images. You can search, retrieve and study more than 2,000,000 patent documents. For more advanced search options, go to the Canadian Patents Database.
Canadian Trademarks Database
This collection provides a general search of the Canadian Trademarks Database. For more advanced search options, go to the Canadian Trademarks Database.
Canadian Copyrights Database
This collection provides a general search of the Canadian Copyrights Database. For more advanced search options, go to the Canadian Copyrights Database.
Canadian Industrial Designs Database
This collection provides a general search of the Canadian Industrial Designs Database. For more advanced search options, go to the Canadian Industrial Designs Database.
Search Options
- Search in:
- All text: Searches the text on the displayed page.
- Title only: Searches HTML titles of HTML pages. In the databases it will produce a list of results of database generated titles.
- Operator:
- All words: Searches for all the words of your query in any order. The "and" operator is used.
- Any words: Searches for any of the words individually in any order. The "or" operator is used.
- This phrase: Searches for all the words in the order shown in your query.
Display Options
- Sort by:
- Relevance: An algorithm used by the search engine to list in a particular order (number of times the word appears in the document). Product line main pages are given a greater level of "importance" in the Verity indexing and should appear higher on the results list.
- Date: Provides the results list in date order using the last modified metatag if one exists.
Document summaries
The summary from the dc.description metatag is displayed on the results list. Where no metatag available, the search engine generates one using text from the page. Work is underway to complete the metadata for the main pages of the products and services on the CIPO site; however, subpages of a document or service will normally present generated summaries only.
Show summaries: Displays the summaries for each result and the page becomes longer.
Hide summaries: Summaries may be hidden to allow for a quick scan of titles.
Results per page
Using the drop-down menu, select the number of results to be displayed per page. All result pages are accessible from the top and bottom of the results page.
Number of documents returned
Using the drop-down menu, select the maximum number of results or documents to be included in the results list. If the total search results are higher than the maximum, refine the search criteria or increase the number to be returned.
Search Tips
Too few results?
- Avoid acronyms.
- Check the spelling.
- The search engine has some difficulty with punctuation. If you get no results, then remove the punctuation and leave a space instead. The text "Fees - provide information" exists but a search using that phrase finds 0 results. Search for "Fees provide information" and the proper text is found.
- Use the wild card character ("*") to expand your search. With a wild card, a search for "habit*" will find "habitation." The wild card does not work at the beginning of a search term.
Too many results?
- Avoid general words.
- Modify your search criteria.