Error detection and correction using CRC and the general class of cyclic codes is an important part of designing reliable data transmission schemes. The decoding method for cyclic codes using covering patterns is easily-implementable, and its complexity de-pends on the number of covering patterns employed. Determination of the minimal set of covering patterns for a given code is an open problem. In this paper, an efficient search method for constructing minimal sets of covering patterns is proposed and compared with several existing search methods. The result is applicable to various codes of practical interest.