The following resources are useful for understanding and finding patent literature.
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PatentsA patent is a grant of property rights to an inventor by a government. The inventor gets the exclusive right to use or manufacture an invention for monetary gain or to exclude others from making, using, or selling the invention in the country (or countries) whose government(s) issued the patent(s). Many patents are indexed in SciFinder Scholar.
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US Patent and Trademark Office Patent DatabaseFull text of all patents granted since 1976, and the patent number, issue date, and current US classification for all patents granted from 1790 through 1975.
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Nexis UniContains several full-text databases: current news, laws and legislation, business and company information, country and state profiles, tax information, biographies, and more.
Not everything can be found in an article, structure, or patent search. Sometimes you will need to investigate other types of information. Sometimes, this can be referred to as "grey literature." Grey literature most often refers to white papers or reports written for internal use by organizations. Some examples include technical reports and standards.