.Mechanical Engineering

A searchable thesaurus of Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) codes. Use this tool to discover patent classification codes for use in your patent search.

Patents are a unique information source, and thorough patent searches require advanced searching techniques such as classification code searching. This document provides the basics.

This guide from University of Wisconsin-Madison explains the basic parts of a patent (scroll down).

Produced by the US Department of Commerce, this is a database of technical reports produced for the US government.

Technical reports from the US Department of Defense. The search bar in the upper right corner will search reports.

The Technical Report Archive & Image Library (TRAIL) identifies, acquires, catalogs, digitizes and provides unrestricted access to U.S. government agency technical reports.

Standards provide industries and innovators with a common language that facilitates trade, simplifies transactions and enables people to work together toward greater common goals that cut across disciplines and borders. Standards.gov is administered by the Standards Coordination Office (SCO) at NIST. This site provides: information about the use of documentary standards in the Federal government; background materials and resources on the standards landscape that are useful for industry and academia; and
useful standards and conformity assessment information freely available to the general public.

Provides a searchable catalog of over one million documents from over 450 standards organizations and sells standards in hard-copy and in digital format.

Provides engineering and technical documents from over 55 standards developing nations.

Searchable access to full-text Defense and Federal specifications and standards available in the official U.S. Department of Defense repository

ASHRAE offers free, read-only access to a select number of their "current popular standards" and standards referenced in code. Scroll down the page to the Preview section to view available standards.

ANSI's outreach program educates and advises faculty about standards in the classroom and in curriculum. Through this program, faculty and students can get complimentary access to a defined group of ISO or IEC standards for the duration of a course.

Incorporation by reference (IBR) allows Federal agencies to comply with the requirement to publish rules in the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) by referring to materials already published elsewhere. This ANSI portal provides free access to select read-only, full-text standards incorporated by reference in U.S. federal regulations.

NIST offers a list of standards bodies that make some or all of their standards free, or free with membership.