Free-of-Charge Patent

(1)

Free-of-Charge Patent Information Sources:

Content and basic functionality

Stephen Adams Magister Ltd.

www.magister.eu

Magister ® is a registered trade mark in the United Kingdom

(2)

Topics

• Introductory remarks about the patent system

• What use is patent information?

• Information need – understanding a basic search classification

• “Information need” -v- “information source” – choosing a database

• Multiple authority collections

• Single authority collections

(3)

Topics

– how and why are patents published?

(4)

Basic patenting principles

• Patent offices publish information (gazette notices, complete specifications, amendments, current status etc.) as part of the patenting process:

(5)

The patent ‘bargain’

• What the patent holder gets:

– Acknowledgement as inventor

– A limited-life monopoly, in the form of…

– The right to exclude others from the

identical line of business

• What the general public gets:

– Information about technological

developments (who, what, when)

– Open access to the technology, once the patent has expired

(6)

“The internet changes everything…”

• The public web has become a medium of choice by which patent offices disseminate much of the statutory information which they publish…

– BUT only for those patent offices equipped to make their data available in electronic form

– AND there are many other sources available.

• Searchers in industry still mainly use subscription services for commercially important searches.

(7)

“The internet changes

^almost

/ everything…”

The official Nigerian patent register;

(original photograph courtesy of Spoor & Fisher, ZA)

Chemical fragment coding sheet;

(for use with Derwent World Patent Index database)

(8)

PATENT OFFICES generated ‘first-level’

raw data, e.g. paper specifications, official register copies, paper bulletins on subscription

DATABASE PRODUCERS acted as ‘information factories’, adding value to the raw material and generating electronic products e.g. magnetic tape

HOSTS were

‘information retailers’, who licensed the data and loaded it onto online systems, each with their own command

language USERS in industry

often needed multiple host accounts in order to access all the

databases that they needed

The old information supply chain;

almost all “for-fee”

(9)

PATENT OFFICES

DATABASE PRODUCERS

HOSTS USERS

The current information supply chain; a mixture of free and fee

‘First- level’, raw data, official registers

Additional editorial

‘value-add’

services

Multiple databases, common retrieval engines

€€€

€€

€ / 0

(10)

What sort of information is it?

• It’s big:

– approx. 1,127,000 patents granted by around 102 authorities worldwide in 2012

• up 13% from 2011

• equivalent to over 4.06 km. stack of paper…

– genetic sequence databases double in size within a year:

• single documents > 2,000,000 A4 pages

• It’s varied in format

– document driven: patents published covering either individual countries or regions (EP, EA, GC…)

– event driven: bulletin entries, register entries, complex legal status

• It’s in multiple languages unfamiliar to most searchers

– particularly from China, Japan, South Korea

– in non-Western languages including Arabic, Cyrillic and other scripts – China is now receiving and publishing the second-largest number of

application per year, behind the USA, and may hit more than 2m applications per year by 2015.

(11)

First-level data

• Most “free-of-charge” sources are either

– national patent-granting offices (e.g. USPTO), or – international patent-publishing bodies (e.g. WIPO).

• Some commercial organisations (e.g. Google) also obtain the data and re-publish for free on the public web.

• In both cases, the data supplied to the user is

– ‘raw data’, with little or no ‘value added’ content – generally limited to single country collections (no

family information)

– often limited to first publication stage only

(12)

PUBLIC SECRET

Time (in months) t = 0

First filing of invention

t = 12

Foreign filing

t = 18

First publication - laid “OPI”

t = 24

Decision to proceed Substantive examination

t = 36 +

Second publication - may be simultaneous with grant of patent

Outline of a typical patenting process

(13)

PUBLIC SECRET

Time (in months) t = 0

First filing of invention

t = 12

Foreign filing

t = 18

First publication - laid “OPI”

Many web sources ONLY cover first publications

This can have important implications for using the resulting patent information

Outline of a typical patenting process

(14)

Topics

– for industry, for academia, for lawyers

(15)

The use of patent information

• Positive:

– It is a large, well-controlled body of literature covering all fields of technology

– It contains large amounts of experimental data or practical description which may never be duplicated in the journal literature

– It is accessible at much lower cost than most journals or conference proceedings

• Negative:

– It is unfamiliar to most academic researchers, and takes time and effort to understand properly

(16)

Obstacles to ‘easy’ use of patent information

• Two basic challenges:

1. Patent documents have a dual function

• as legal documents to define the scope of a monopoly and

• as technical documents to disclose the nature of an innovation

2. Patentable innovations vary enormously in scope

• “one small step for man” or

• “one giant leap for mankind”?

(17)

1. Dual function documents

• The language of a patent document is a compromise between

– legal definitions and terminology (needed if the end result is to be enforcable), and

– the “normal language” of scientific and technical disclosures.

• This does not encourage new users, even if they are skilled scientists or

technologists.

(18)

Legal terminology:

calling a spade a …?

• Cooperative Patent Classification

– A01B 1/02 (Spades and shovels):

– Sample titles of patents retrieved:

• “Digging implement”

• “Garden tool”

• “Digging tool”

• “Hand-operable excavation apparatus”

• “Material handling device”

• “Portable fulcrum”

• “Trencher”

• “Implement with a foot pedal”

(19)

• Most technical innovations are not “giant leaps”

but incremental developments of existing products or production methods^.

– small technical developments pose great information retrieval challenges

• process chemistry ; a new solvent for a known reaction

• metallurgy ; an improved alloy with a slight change in composition

• electronics ; a smaller radio receiver due to better chip design

• mechanical ; a better mousetrap!

– words are often inadequate to describe the fine detail.

2. The nature of innovation

(20)

Search claim 1...

etc.

(21)

The implications for subject-based information retrieval

1. Document function and language

– search procedures which work for other literature need to be adapted to work with patents.

• may need to un-learn some of the techniques and tricks from other work

• word-based searches alone are rarely adequate

2. Innovation as incremental developments

– large volumes of closely related documents demand highly-discriminating retrieval tools

• a simple “Google-style” search simply doesn’t achieve the desired results in an effective manner

(22)

Information needs ? Answers from patents !

• Despite their problems, patent documents can be used to help in a great many technical problems.

• Some examples:

– workers at an SME want to find out how their competitors have tackled a similar problem

– academic researchers need to go beyond theory, towards working technical solutions

– economists want to assess national R&D spending and innovation ranking

– personnel managers want to hire new skilled workers with experience in a certain field

– licensing agents want to understand a fair price for purchase / royalty payments

– merger specialists need to consider the asset value of a company for acquisition

(23)

How the web has improved the access to patents…

• Enormous capacity for shared resources

– widespread access, large collections

• Convenient electronic publishing

– small organisations can become providers – users can integrate results within company

• Very fast access to documents

– typically within 1-2 days of publication

• Low or zero cost

(24)

…and where things have stayed the same, or got worse.

• Guaranteed fast connections

– or even getting connected at all!

• Consistent data quality

– the “same” files on different servers may be loaded in quite different ways

• (Non)-Standard searching methods

• Software or other technical support

(25)

Some concerns about patent searching on the (free) web

• Less information about actual content of database or website

• Relatively limited search functionality

• Content may not remain free

– particularly if hosted by non-governmental organisations

• How safe is my search ?

– encryption and confidentiality issues

(26)

Topics

(27)

Patentability;

Validity Commercial

intelligence;

marketing scope Trend analyses,

‘watch’ services

Different types of information need

Who’s this new kid on the block?

They never seek patents outside the US!

Wouldn’t any engineer do the same thing?

It’s simple, it works – but is it new?

Why is their MD visiting China?

Is there much demand for this outside Europe?

Who else is working on this?

Is there a

different solution to this problem?

What are our company assets?

Is there scope to work

together?

Should we try to buy, or license?

Surely, that’s not exclusive! - it’s common sense.

I’m being sued! What should I do?

Freedom To Operate

Portfolio review;

M&A, valuation

State-of-the-art review;

‘landscaping’

(28)

Patentability;

Validity

Freedom To Operate

Portfolio review;

M&A, valuation

State-of-the-art review;

‘landscaping’

Commercial intelligence;

marketing scope Trend analyses,

Different types of patent-related

question

(29)

Subject-matter

Patentability;

Validity; general

“learning”

Legal status

FTO

Portfolio review;

M&A, valuation

Assignee data

State-of-the-art

review; ‘landscaping’

Jurisdiction

Commercial intelligence;

marketing scope

Time Trend analyses,

Different types of searches using

patents to answer these questions

(30)

Commercial -v- free-of-charge

• Information may be free-of-charge to obtain, but gaining knowledge always costs

30

Retrieve Assess Understand Respond

$$

“free”

“fee”

(31)

Key uses for free web services

• They are not comprehensive enough (data

sources) or flexible enough (search engines) to provide a good quality patentability search.

• Main uses by industry searchers are for:

– search strategy development

• low cost browsing, used to identify suitable search terms

– words/classifications/inventor names can be extracted to re- use in commercial search files

– preliminary (first-cut) searches

• some full-text (US, DE, some WO), mostly applicant’s abstracts

– legal status checks

• national patent registers increasingly available; not often suitable for bulk retrieval

(32)

Search types and choosing an information source

• A simple search classification

– Novelty (patentability)

– Infringement (“freedom of action”, “freedom to operate”)

– Validity & opposition – State-of-the-art

– Alerting (current awareness) – Family & equivalent

– Citation

(33)

1. Novelty

• Subject matter search focused upon the specific details of an invention.

• Designed to establish whether an

application for patent grant is likely to succeed.

• Ideally, results should be at hand for attorney as he/she is drafting the

application.

(34)

1. Novelty

• Requires :

– multi-country source (essential)

• not many web sources provide this

– multi-technology source (preferable)

– detailed subject indexing and search features

• web is normally raw data only

– patent and non-patent literature

– rapid updating (up-to-date content)

• web is very competitive here

(35)

2. Infringement

• Limited to specific geographic area(s) and to claims of valid, in-force patents only.

• Designed to establish the “freedom to

operate” i.e. to avoid the possibility of

infringing someone else’s patent.

(36)

2. Infringement

• Requires :

– single-country/regional sources – multi-technology sources

– detailed subject search facilities

– ready access to exact text of claims

• sometimes possible with the web, but can be laborious process

– links to legal status of retrieved records

• often quick and efficient on the web for small numbers of records

(37)

3. Validity & opposition

• Similar to novelty, but limited to matter published before the priority date of a known patent.

• Designed to gather material for legal

proceedings, questioning the validity of an opponent’s patent

– not new, no inventive step.

(38)

3. Validity & opposition

• Requires :

– multi-country, multi-technology sources – extensive subject indexing (full-text is

helpful)

• a few full-text sources on the web, but most are display only, not for search

– patent and non-patent literature

– search features allowing date limitation (useful)

• rarely available on the web

(39)

4. State-of-the-art

• Review of a defined subject area.

• Typically used to map out the major

technologies and/or companies in a field,

e.g. before starting a competing research

programme.

(40)

4. State-of-the-art

• Requires :

– broad-based subject indexing (not necessarily as deep as for novelty)

– multi-country coverage (optional) – good access to complete texts

• the preamble of patents can serve as mini-reviews

– statistical analysis / visualisation capability (optional)

• sometimes available on web resources

(41)

5. Alerting searches

• Ongoing awareness of new patents in specific industries or by specific

companies.

• Designed as an early-warning service to guide research programmes and avoid duplication of research

– also good for “me-too” work

(42)

5. Alerting searches

• Requires

– reliable high speed updating

• one of the great strengths of the web

– adequate broad-based subject capability (typically simple subject classifications) – standardised record formats for quick

browsing

• rarely available ; format almost always varies between countries/websites

(43)

6. Family & equivalent

• Identifies either

– the geographic extent of patent protection (family) and/or

– texts in preferred languages

• Questions of legal status under regional

patent systems may arise.

(44)

6. Family & equivalent

• Requires :

– accurate and timely collation of family data

• most web sources are single country

– intellectual added-value

• for legal variations such as US-Re or non- Convention cases

– variable quality links

– extensive time coverage

• publication of family members may spread over many years

(45)

7. Citations

• Analysing document clusters based on official patent search reports

• In support of other types of search

(particularly validity) or as an exercise in statistical evaluation of competitors

• Caution! requires :

– complete data sets (not yet routinely available)

– highly standardised data fields (esp. assignee)

(46)

Single-country citations

A B

A1 A2 A3 A4 B1 B2 B3

If A and B both cite A4, there is probably some link between A & B.

(47)

Single-country citations

A B

A1 A2 A3 B1 B2 B3

But if B2 is an equivalent of A3, the link would be missed in a simple citation database.

(48)

Family-family citations

fA fB

fA1 fA2 fA3 fB1 fB2 fB3

In a family citation database, if fA3 = fB2 the link will be found.

No web

source does this yet – commercial sector only

(49)

Topics

– directories and keeping up-to-date

(50)

Portals

• All portals / directories / link lists go out of data eventually !

– best advice is not to rely too heavily on any single source, but build up your own list of established sites

• Many patent-related portals are heavy on the legal side, and contain less

information about searching resources.

(51)

Manually-curated directories

• British Library Business & IP Centre

– www.bl.uk/eresources/business/cd-busin.html (click on

“Intellectual Property Resources”)

– www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelpsubject/busmanlaw/ip/ipdoc/docum entation.html

• IP Menu

– www.iplawlink.com/ipmenu/

• Intellogist

– www.intellogist.com

• mixture of editorial and collaborative material

• WIPO directory of IP offices

– www.wipo.int/directory/en/urls.jsp

• link from homepage now missing; use Home>Reference>Country Profiles>Directory

(52)

Extracts from list of British

Library holdings of IP material

(53)

IPMenu entry for Italian data sources

(54)

Intellogist entry for Italy

(55)

WIPO directory including web links

(56)

Other sources of information

• Professional networking

– join AIDB !

– participate in an established “discussion”

with other professionals e.g. PIUG wiki

• Manual directory from the Dutch user group (WON) at www.won-nl.org

– websites sorted by information content (home page, bibliographic search, national register, official publications, machine translation, litigation, trademarks, other)

(57)

Topics

– IPOs; Espacenet, PatentScope, Depatisnet – Third party (non-IPO); Google, FPO

(58)

A word of caution

• Non-IPO suppliers of patent data are appearing and disappearing at a fast pace;

– the following survey includes only a few examples, and is limited to those which seem to have an established user base within industry.

– the survey also excludes websites which function primarily as document delivery (search by number only), rather than subject- searchable databases.

– be cautious about relying upon new resources until you understand what they can deliver.

• Some companies not covered in detail (for reasons of space, not product quality) include:

– AztecIPSearch ® (AztecIP), Boliven Pro / Discover IP (CambridgeIP), IP.com Prior Art Database (IP.com), IPEXL (Intellectual Property

Exchange), Pantros IP (formerly Patent Café), Patent Lens ™ / The Lens (CAMBIA) and Prior Smart ® (Priorsmart.com)

(59)

The Espacenet family (xx.espacenet.com)

• National language interface for all databases

• Up to 5 databases available, depending upon the URL used for access

– local national file (e.g. GB)

– other European national files (e.g. DE, FR…) – EP applications full text

– PCT applications full text (Eng, Fre, Ger only) – worldwide file (90+ countries)

(60)

(61)

Note that available fields vary, according to database selection

(62)

(63)

Other members of the Espacenet family

(64)

Espacenet

• All national files remain in the national language

– searchable titles only, restricted file size

• EP and WO files

– searchable full text for EPO official languages only

– English abstracts and titles for all records

• Worldwide file (includes EP + WO)

– titles and abstracts, range of countries/years

(65)

Espacenet

• Worldwide database

– at least one member of each patent family is available as a scanned image, in PDF format – requires Adobe Acrobat to view

– some documents available with character- coded text (can cut/paste into other

documents)

• Other databases

– document availability/ form varies

(66)

Basic Espacenet coverage in the worldwide file

Additional country coverage is detailed at Help > Coverage of worldwide database (link off the Advanced Search page) or directly via www.epo.org/gpdc (Global Patent Database Coverage)

(67)

Example of detailed coverage for a single country (Canada)

Similar tables, including both overall coverage and timeliness of data delivery, are available for the other countries covered by the file.

(68)

Cooperative Patent Classification

• CPC marks are applied to a proportion of the documents within the worldwide file

– common classification across a range of countries, to assist worldwide searching

– caution : coverage is based upon the PCT Minimum Documentation collection

• Rule 34 PCT Regulations - EP, WO from 1978 + US, GB, FR, DE, CH, JP, SU/RU from 1920 +

• JP and SU/RU not given CPC codes normally, nor are KR or CN

– some other countries also classified, at examiner’s discretion

(69)

Family data in Espacenet

• The worldwide database is grouped according to patent families

– one document relating to each invention is chosen as the ‘representative’

– others are stored as ‘also published as’

– this makes the database useful for novelty searching, as the user does not have to de- duplicate equivalent patent applications

• The default family rule is ‘strict’, but the user can opt to view the ‘extended’ one

(70)

PatentScope

• ‘PatentScope’ is the name used for the

patent searching part of the WIPO website

– www.wipo.int/patentscope/en/

– initially only contained PCT applications, published by the International Bureau of the PCT, located at WIPO

• The WIPO website also contains the authoritative text of the International Patent Classification (IPC)

– www.wipo.int/classifications/ipc/en

(71)

PatentScope

• Complete bibliographic data, for PCT applications.

– Approximately 99.7% of the full texts – 100% with page images

• Additional country collections added

– often grew out of collaborative digitisation projects with smaller national offices

• e.g. Central and South American states, Morocco, Vietnam.

– now totals 38 collections + PCT ; 36m records,

approximately ⅔ in full text (9 different languages)

(72)

National collections

• WIPO is constantly adding new (and major) collections

– Canada (2.1m records, 50% full text) – China (3.4m records, 98% full text) – Japan (7.7m records, 94% full text) – Korea (1.9m records, no full text) – USA (10.4m records, 62% full text) – EPO (2.7m records, 67% full text)

– UK and Germany due to be added in 2014

(73)

PatentScope national collections in overview

(74)

Detailed PatentScope statistics

(full list at http://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/help/data_coverage.jsf)

(75)

Features of PatentScope

• All full texts are loaded in the original language

– a Cross-Language Information Retrieval (CLIR) module facilitates synonym-finding in other

languages

• Proximity and range-searching features are available (not normally needed for Espacenet, due to lack of full text)

• Convenient download of results

• Graphical / tabular summary of results

(76)

Important note

• Although the PatentScope command language provides for full-text searching, almost all the collections apart from the PCT contain only a sub-set of records with full text

– most are mainly bibliographic data

• Do not confuse the presence of page images for full-text display with character-coded text which can be used for full-text search.

(77)

DEPATISnet

(http://depatisnet.dpma.de)

• Service provided by the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA)

• Wide country coverage of bibliographic data, plus some full text

• Provides a ‘beginner’ mode, plus a

sophisticated command language based upon the EPO MIMOSA software

• English and German search interfaces

(78)

Summary of principal Depatisnet coverage

Country Start year Documents Page images (%) Full text (%) Title (%) Abstract (%)

AT 1920- 1104707 39 0 100 3

CH 1888- 723789 98 0 89 5

DD 1978- 147164 99 98 96 81

DD 1946-1977 158076 98 98 8 0

DE 1978- 3050287 100 99 99 47

DE 1946-1977 2637734 96 97 89 1

DE 1877-1945 995750 100 100 44 0

EP 1978- 4965417 93 0 100 33

FR 1920- 3085073 76 0 76 22

GB 1920- 2703224 88 0 97 77

JP 1976- 22062182 47 0 50 47

KR 1970- 3621781 79 0 85 61

US 1978- 8981782 99 0 99 94

US 1946-1977 1819381 100 0 94 24

US 1790-1945 2535355 100 0 91 0

WO 1978- 3068502 98 0 100 99

+ basic bibliographic details from another 90 countries (based largely upon EPO data (= espacenet)

(79)

Features of DEPATISnet

• Addition of DEKLA (DPMA-enhanced IPC scheme for subject searching) to core records

• Search on single documents, but with

ability to create ‘on-the-fly’ family groups

• Substantial numbers of PDF copies per family, sometimes more than Espacenet

– good alternative source for document supply

(80)

Google Patents

(http://patents.google.com)

• Initially launched with US patents only

– contains OCR text from 1790-1975, not always high quality.

– some features still only available for US

• Progressively added additional collections

– EP, WO, CN, DE, CA

• Same basic search technology as main Google engine

– by default, results are “relevance ranked”

(81)

Issues with OCR text

(82)

Google search modes

Where am I ?

(www.google.com/patents or patents.google.com)

Where can I search?

(www.google.com/advanced_

patent_search)

(83)

Features of Google Patents

• Good display and download features

– but not for all records

• More hyperlinks than other sites ; facility to expand or modify search easily

• Still very biased towards US content (e.g.

patent type/status only applies to US cases)

• Unusual form of search engine

(84)

Free Patents Online (FPO)

(http://www.freepatentsonline.com)

• As with Google, based in the US and focussed largely on US documents and US practice

• Added EP-A and -B (1978+), JP-B

(1996+), JP-A (abstracts only, 1976+), WO (1978-?) and DE (in beta)

(85)

Free Patents Online

“advanced search” page

(86)

Features of FPO

• Full-text operators provided

– but no indication of handling non-English

• Unusual date range facility, may be useful in some circumstances e.g.

– [field]/[date1]->[date2]

– [field]/NOW-1YEAR->NOW

• Saved searches and alerts are possible for account holders (free to create)

(87)

Topics

– USPTO, JPO, SIPO, KIPO – Additional smaller offices

(88)

US Patent and Trademark Office (www.uspto.gov)

• Mounts 2 databases

– granted patents 1790-date

– pre-grant publications 2001-date

• Electronic Official Gazette (eOG:P) for browsing each week’s new grants

– no equivalent for published applications

• Applicant’s service site (pair.uspto.gov) for legal status (Public PAIR) and

electronic filing (encrypted, account-

based Private PAIR)

(89)

USPTO

• Accessing the search files:

– Use ‘Patent Search’ link from the ‘Popular Links’ listing on the home page

– or go via the ‘Patents’ button to a sub-menu and select either

• ‘search patents’ = granted documents, 18-month applications, re-assignments

• ‘Popular Links’ listing which provides additional links to ‘withdrawn patents’, ‘expired patents’

and ‘extended patent terms’

(90)

USPTO

• Browsing the Official Gazette

– Home > Patents > Tools > Official Gazette (Patents)

– or direct link to

www.uspto.gov/news/og/patent_og/index.jsp

• Contains most recent 52 weekly issues only; searchable by patent number,

assignee and (currently) US classification.

• Links to the full text databases

(91)

USPTO - Main search files

• Full-text US patents from 1976

– includes page images in TIFF format

• additional viewer may be needed

– includes page images of certain amending documents such as Certificates of Correction

• Number and classification only from 1790-1975

• Content includes Design Patents, SIR’s,

Plant Patents and Re-issue cases

(92)

Main search files

• File typically updated within 1-2 days of publication

– bibliographic and text data

• Facsimile images of pages can be slightly delayed.

• Caution: amendment documents (e.g Re- issues, Certificates of Correction) are

sometimes missing from the facsimiles –

always check the PAIR record as well.

(93)

Main search files

• Pre-grant publications file

– First documents from Mar. 2001

– New legislation in 1999 (AIPA) required pre- grant publication for most US filings

(previously only once at grant) – New number format adopted:

• US YYYY/NNNNNNN A1

• Granted patents remain in the old continuous series US NNNNNNN (B).

(94)

Main search files

• Classification searching:

– use the associated files of USPC / CPC at www.uspto.gov/web/patents/classification/

(or link from ‘Search for Patents’ > ‘Popular Links’ > ‘Tools to help in searching by Patent Classification’)

– OR

– conduct a search, manually extract the class marks and then iterate via classification

listing.

(95)

Searching from within US classification

Hyperlink:

‘A’ to applications or

‘P’ to granted patents,

carrying this classification mark

(96)

Main search files

US 5,678,910

“Multiple angle projection for 3-D imagery”

US Cl. 353/7

Classification definitions cut-and-paste

436 additional patents in the same class.

Example titles:

“Stereo display apparatus”

“Three-dimensional display”

“Projector”

Class 353

Optics; image projectors Sub-class 7

Stereoscopic

(97)

Features of USPTO search

• All documents in a single language (English) and in full text from 1976+

• Basic proximity search available, with hit- term highlighting

• Citations are implemented as hyperlinks

– BUT only to/from other US patents, not all literature citations or other patents

• Provides for supply (at cost) of certified copies of patent specifications

(98)

Japan Patent Office (www.jpo.go.jp)

• The JPO has two websites, one in Japanese and one in English

– the two sites do not contain exactly equivalent resources for search

– however, more of the Japanese site is being translated and provided over time

• The main tool for English-language

searching is the Patent Abstracts of Japan

(PAJ) database.

(99)

JPO

• Access to PAJ: Home page > ‘Industrial

Property Digital Library’ > ‘Patent and utility model’ > ‘PAJ’

• Data content:

– unexamined applications (JP-A) from 1976-date

• does NOT include PCT national phase entry (500,000 series)

– human-prepared abstracts in English

• 3-month delay from publication date

• Better quality than applicant’s abstracts for searching

– basic legal status and link to machine translations of specification also provided from 1993 onwards

(100)

PAJ

• Searchable by

– Applicant (but not inventors) – Title / abstract

– Publication date – IPC

– Application / priority / publication number (separate search window)

• Initial display is hit-list (index), then link

to front-page style data

(101)

PAJ

• If English abstract is not yet available, display reverts to Japanese original

• Additional data

– limited legal status data via “Legal Status” button – on-the-fly machine translation via “Details” button

• translates the body of the specification and presents in segments, together with drawings where present.

– facsimile of document via “Japanese” button

(102)

(103)

Additional resources

• Patent and Utility Model Gazette database

– simple number search, access to facsimiles

• Patent and Utility Model concordance

– links together application number,

unexamined publication number, examined publication number (old law) and grant

number

• FI/F-term search

– Japanese classification systems for non-word search of more extensive databases

(104)

FI/F-term search

• Classification searching by two methods

– FI system (JPO enhanced version of the IPC)

• typically 1-5 per document

– F-terms (deep-indexing terms)

• typically 15-50 per document

• In addition to an alternative search key, use of classification allows access to a wider collection of documents

– Patents back to 1885

– Utility models back to 1912

(105)

State Intellectual Property Office (of the People’s Republic of China)

• Free databases of Chinese patents and utility models are hosted by SIPO (www.sipo.gov.cn)

– two separate sites:

• China Patent Inquiry System (www.cpquery.gov.cn)

– includes account-only e-filing module – public file inspection from 2010 onwards

• Patent Search and Service System (www.pss- system.gov.cn)

• More detailed databases (C-Pat Search) are

provided by the Intellectual Property Publishing House (IPPH), a separate division of SIPO

– registration required, partly fee-based

(106)

English version of SIPO home page

(107)

China Patent Inquiry System

• Simple search interface offering search by

application number, title or applicant name(s)

– no classification, abstracts or other numeric data (e.g.

priorities)

• Provides basic bibliographic information and some legal status in English (e.g. request for examination filed)

– display text is mostly in Chinese

• Link to ‘view’ full documents connects through to same system as PSS System

(108)

Patent Search and Service System

• More sophisticated command language than CPIS

• Provides bibliographic details in both

Chinese and English versions, including abstracts and drawing, plus facsimile of original documents

– link to Chinese → English machine

translation available once facsimile is on screen

(109)

(110)

Korea Intellectual Property Office (KIPO, www.kipo.go.kr)

• Simple search in Korean Patent Abstracts (KPA, manual translations into English) via KIPO home page.

– 1973-date (grants), 1999-date (unexamined)

• Main searching resources via KIPRIS (Korea Intellectual Property Rights

Information Service) at www.kipris.or.kr

– additionally provides access to KPA and K2E-PAT machine translation

(111)

Additional services

• Search databases in addition to KPA

– Patents ;

• grants from 1948, unexamined from 1983

– Utility models ;

– Designs ;

– Trademarks ;

• applications and grants from 1950

• K2E machine translation

– available on a pay-per-view basis or flat fee for unlimited translations during a given period e.g. daily, monthly

subscription

(112)

Light blue = registered (granted)

Pink = rejected

Dark blue = unexamined

Green = withdrawn

(113)

Minor country sites

• Smaller patent offices with searchable files

– Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Lithuania, Mexico,

Moldova, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Spain,

Switzerland, Thailand, United Kingdom….

• Some have sophisticated search files,

others are simple browsable PDF gazettes

(114)

UK Intellectual Property Office (www.ipo.gov.uk)

• Local link to Espacenet server

– All 1977 Act GB cases (first published 1979)

• National Patent Status service

– direct link to OPTICS register

– UK Supplementary Protection Certificates

• UK Design and trade mark search files

• Other Patent Office publications and

services, including Patents & Designs

Journal

(115)

Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) (http://cipo.ic.gc.ca)

• Patent Office Record and corresponding Trade Marks Journal available

• Select ‘Patents database’

– searchable back to 1869 (some text from 1920)

– title, abstract and claims (from 1978) – inventor and applicant details

– full facsimiles in PDF format

(116)

IP Australia

(www.ipaustralia.gov.au)

• Main database

– Integrated AusPat service launched – Full text back to 1904

– Many specifications as PDF

• Special features

– Proximity operators for full text search

– Name Selector allows viewing of inventor and applicant names from consolidated listing, before adding to search form.

(117)

INPI, France (www.inpi.fr)

• Similar arrangement to Espacenet

– title, abstract, applicant, inventor, IPC, publication number

– provides simultaneous FR/EP/WO search in default file

• Complete texts available, not searchable

– FR national collection from 1989

– Translation of EP-A claims into French from 2004.

(118)

Some others...

• Taiwan

(

www.tipo.gov.tw/en/index.aspx

) – comparatively crude, site not always

available… but at least it’s there!

• Mexico

(http://www.impi.gob.mx) – Patents from 1980 to date

– Full abstracts and bibliographic details, including front page drawings

(119)