There are close to 7 million patents in the U.S. Why are patents important to researchers? Some 70-80% of technical literature is only available in patents and technical reports, which are not indexed in the Library's online catalog or accessible by doing a Google search. The best place for patent searching at Cornell is MicroPatent, a database we subscribe to, and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) database. In this session we will explore how these databases work. We will also discuss the difference between patents, trade secrets, and trademarks.