Protecting your ideas

Knowledge of intellectual property (IP) can help you to protect your ideas and develop them to reap financial gain. Our resources and workshops will provide you with an introduction to this subject and help to guide you through the four types of intellectual property:

• Patents
• Trade marks
• Registered designs
• Copyright

Resources at Newcastle City Library

Newcastle City Library is a designated PATLIB UK centre and we are the only library providing specialist patent information between Leeds and Glasgow. The Centre is supported by the UK Intellectual Property Office and the European Patent Office.

At City Library we can provide free Intellectual Property Office information packs and applications forms for all types of intellectual property. We hold a range of historical British patent abstracts and name indexes from 1617 to 1930.

Intellectual property clinics

Our information and advice is free and, for those able to visit, we can provide assistance in patent searching. Anything you discuss with us is treated confidentially. We offer intellectual property advice clinics in the City Library at the following times:

Wednesday
9am – 10am
10:15am – 11:15am
11:30am – 12:30pm

Friday
2pm – 3pm
3:30pm – 4:30pm

To book a session please contact us on 0191 277 4100 or email bipcnewcastle@newcastle.gov.uk.

Online resources

For information on applying and searching for patents, trade marks and designs visit the Intellectual Property Office website.

We have produced several guides which are available to download here:

A summary of fees relating to patents and trademarks (PDF, 266KB)
A guide to patent information on the internet (PDF, 270KB)
A guide to patent searching on Espacenet (PDF, 535KB)
A guide to historical patent searching (PDF, 268KB)

Research service

Patent searching – at City Library we offer a patent search service at a charge of £100 for the first hour and £30 per hour thereafter.

Trade mark searching – our trade mark search covers registered UK and European Community trade marks and can be words, logos or both. This process is designed to identify whether your intended trade mark or one similar is already registered and could save you wasting £200 or more on an unsuccessful application. The cost for this is £35 for a half hour search (covers a maximum of four trade marks or one logo) and £25 per hour thereafter.