Introduction to patents documentation

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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 3

Topics


– how and why are patents published?



classification


choosing a database



© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 4

Basic patenting principles

• Patent offices publish information (gazette notices, complete specifications,

amendments, current status etc.) as part of the patenting process:

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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 5

“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.

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“The internet changes almost /

everything…”

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 7

The official Nigerian patent register; (original photograph courtesy of Spoor & Fisher, ZA)

Chemical fragment coding sheet; (for use with Derwent World Patent Index database)

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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”

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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.

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 14

Topics



– for industry, for academia, for lawyers


classification


choosing a database



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

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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”?

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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.

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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”

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• 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

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Search claim 1...

etc.

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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

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

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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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 26

Topics




classification


choosing a database



Patentability;

Validity

Commercial

intelligence;

marketing scope

Trend analyses,

‘watch’ services

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 27

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’

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

Commercial -v- free-of-charge

• Information may be free-of-charge to obtain, but

gaining knowledge always costs

30

Retrieve Assess Understand Respond

$$

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014

“free”

“fee”

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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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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.

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

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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.

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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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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.

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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.

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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

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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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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.

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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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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)

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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.

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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.

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 49

Topics




classification


choosing a database

– directories and keeping up-to-date



© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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.

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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/documentation.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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 52

Extracts from list of British

Library holdings of IP material

IPMenu entry for Italian

data sources

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Intellogist entry for Italy

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WIPO directory including web links

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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)

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Topics




classification


choosing a database


– IPOs; Espacenet, PatentScope, Depatisnet

– Third party (non-IPO); Google, FPO


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)

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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)

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 60

Note that available fields vary,

according to database selection

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Other members of the

Espacenet family

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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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

Basic Espacenet coverage in the

worldwide file

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 66

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)

Example of detailed coverage for a

single country (Canada)

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 67

Similar tables, including both overall coverage and

timeliness of data delivery, are available for the other

countries covered by the file.

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

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 © Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 69

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

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)

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 71

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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 72

PatentScope national collections

in overview

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 73

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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 74

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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 75

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.

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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

Summary of principal

Depatisnet coverage

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 78

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)

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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 79

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”

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 80

Issues with OCR text

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 81

Google search modes

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 82

Where am I ?

(www.google.com/patents or

patents.google.com)

Where can I search?

(www.google.com/advanced_

patent_search)

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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 83

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)

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 84

Free Patents Online

“advanced search” page

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 85

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)

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 86

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 87

Topics




classification


choosing a database


• Single authority collections – USPTO, JPO, SIPO, KIPO

– Additional smaller offices

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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)

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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’

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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.

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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).

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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.

Searching from within US classification

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 95

Hyperlink:

‘A’ to applications or

‘P’ to granted patents,

carrying this classification

mark

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 97

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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.

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 102

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 © Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 103

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 105

English version of SIPO home page

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 106

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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 107

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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 108

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 109

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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 110

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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 111

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 112

Colour-coded hit list:

Light blue = registered (granted)

Pink = rejected

Dark blue = unexamined

Green = withdrawn

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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.

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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.

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 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

Summary (1)

• There is a great deal of free of charge

information available.

• Most comes from national IPOs with

minimal value add.

• More and more full text is available, but

usually only in the original language

• The commercial sector still provides, and

charges for, added value in patent

databases.

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 119

Summary (2)

• Espacenet and DEPATISnet provide multi-country

databases, with records grouped by family

– most other sites are single-country collections (searched singly

or together)

• USPTO and PatentScope default to searching full-text ;

– most other sources use titles and/or abstracts

• Classification searching is one way of extending

coverage back in time

– US to 1790, Japan to 1885

• National websites of Asian patent offices are providing

MT into English, often free.

© Magister Ltd. 2003-2008, 2014 120

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