How to Conduct a Patent Search

To get a basic understanding of patent searches read Searching For Students and in particular read Searching Using Key Words. It was written for students; however, if you can look past the cute language it will quickly get you reading and searching patents online within minutes. It will not be enough to do a diligent (complete) search for prior art by only using the Internet. For that you would need to understand the patent classification system and be prepared to do days or even weeks of research.