This guide provides a starting point for library research and access to the key resources available through Sheridan Library relevant to Mechanical Engineering.
Patents and designs are intellectual property rights that protect new inventions and product designs.
Patents are legal government grants given to an inventor that protects "new and useful inventions (product, composition, machine, process) or any new and useful improvement to an existing invention" (CIPO) for a limited time. A patent grants the right to exclude others from making, selling, using or importing an invention during the patent's life span.
A Guide to Patents is available online through Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO).
Design Patents, or Industrial Design protects the visual features of shape, configuration, pattern or ornament to a finished product. "An industrial design must have features that appeal to the eye. If you want to register an industrial design, it must be original" (CIPO)
Over 65 million patent documents from international patent offices, including Canada, China, European Patent Office, Japan, Korea, Russia, U.S. and the U.K.