- Email: [email protected]
News on patent, trademark and design databases on the internet
World Patent Information xxx (2015) 1e2
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
World Patent Information journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/worpatin
News on patent, trademark and design databases on the internet The Australian patent database Auspat, at http://pericles. ipaustralia.gov.au/ols/auspat/, has undergone a visual revamp to make it clearer and more usable. The simple “quick search” search box has now been added to the front page of the database. Brazil is now once again offering free access to its databases of patents, trade marks, designs, and computer program copyright, although downloading documents still requires free registration. The databases themselves appear similar to their previous functionality, and are available at http://epatentes.inpi.gov.br/ for patents, http://www.inpi.gov.br/portal/artigo/emarcas for trade marks, and https://gru.inpi.gov.br/pPI/servlet/LoginController? action¼Login&BasePesquisa¼Desenhos for designs. A new update of Espacenet features a number of improvements. The Descriptions and Claims tabs in the document view now include links to “also published as” documents, to quickly reach official document texts in a different language if required and available. A “claims tree” depicting dependent claims in an expandable and collapsible tree format is now available as an additional tab within the Claims tab. It is now possible to easily submit suggested corrections to the machine-translated text of descriptions and claims. Within the Classification Search screen, there are alternate toggle buttons to exclude or interleave 2000-series classifications. The EPO Patent Register site at http://www.epo.org/searching/ free/register.html has also been updated. RSS feed notification messages now include the search strategy in the header. The legal representative name is now included in the results list. Dispatch of Rule 164 search results (supplementary searches for inventions not searched by the EPO in the international phase) is now included as an event in the status records. Applications can now be searched for by grant date and by appeal case number. The file wrapper display allows the list of opposition-related documents to be filtered by the specific opponent using a pull-down menu. Finally, it is possible for registered users to have greater control over which events in the life of an application are alerted for by email notifications. The Expert search of the German DEPATISNET site at https:// depatisnet.dpma.de has been redesigned to make it possible for people who are not fully familiar with the syntax to use a pulldown menu to select individual search fields, and buttons to create operators or wildcards. It is possible to hide these or the result list configuration options to save screen space. India has reportedly launched new “Stock and Flow” utilities to monitor the status of patents and trade marks at http://www. ipindia.nic.in/dynamic_Utility_Index.htm for patents and http:// ipindiaonline.gov.in/progress/stockandflow.aspx or http:// ipindiaonline.gov.in/progress/ for trade marks. I have been unable to access these sites recently to check, but they reportedly include tools to provide ceased and expired patents, disposal reports for patent applications, examination report issues, reported working http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wpi.2014.12.004 0172-2190
of patents, and general patent and trade mark status. The patent utilities can be searched by a mixture of known number, patentee, year, and regional patent office branch, while the trade mark ones show all applications at a particular selected stage at present. The Japanese patent office has a web page at http://www.jpo.go. jp/shiryou_e/s_sonota_e/fips_e/mokuji_e.htm offering translations into English of the IP laws of a wide range of countries, as well as international treaties and conventions. The page has been up since 2009, although I was only recently alerted to it. The South Korean IP database KIPRIS, at http://www.kipris.or. kr/enghome/main.jsp, has a new default “All” option on the basic search that allows a simultaneous keyword search on all forms of IP. The result page is divided into separate sections for patent, design and trade marks, with a filter set at the top left that allows an individual type of IP to be selected. Clicking the “Click here for advanced search” button with all three types of IP displayed does not bring up a true advanced search, but only boxes to add new AND or NOT terms. A new separate site for the paid translation service has been set up at http://www.k2epat.com, but it is currently only available in Korean. A full launch will occur early in 2015. Nigeria now has a registered copyright database at http://www. eregistration.copyright.gov.ng/search/advance. It can be searched by keyword, medium, author, title, registration number, and copyright owner. Individual records include all this data, plus contact details for the owner, which may be a telephone number or email address. Singapore has rebranded its IP databases as IP2SG. They are available at http://www.ipos.gov.sg/Services/FilingandRegistration/ GettingStartedwitheServices/eSearch.aspx. The same search interface applies to all of them and has a “Fast Search”, “Simple Search”, and “Advanced Search”. The “Fast Search” can be used to find patents, trade marks, or designs by keyword or number in a single search box. It can also be used to retrieve IP forms, or issues of the official journals from the last three months. The “Simple Search” uses radio buttons to select a search for forms, IP, journals, Nice classifications, or patent abstracts/specifications using fielded search forms. The “IP” option searches any form of IP by application number, filing data, applicant, agent, or case number. Tick box options add additional fields for patents, trade marks, or designs, including the usual variety of search options plus status. More unusual search options include separate trade mark search boxes for transliterated or translated trade marks, phonetic similarity, and original Chinese characters. The specific “Patents abstract & specification” “Simple Search” form offers more detailed searches by keyword with or without stemming, along with the usual options of date, inventor, applicant, IPC, and so forth. Again it is possible to search by status. The Advanced Search allows creation of more complex search statements with fields selected from a pull-down menu linked by Boolean operators, again selected from pull-down menus. The Advanced
2
News on patent, trademark and design databases on the internet / World Patent Information xxx (2015) 1e2
Search also requires selection of patent, trade mark or design search using radio buttons. The result list pages for patents show bibliographic details, while those for trade marks and designs can be set to show images and bibliographic details, or images only. There is no explicit coverage statement. Bibliographic data for patents is available as far back as the 1930s with full specs from the late 1970s. The trade mark database appears to contain marks from the 1930s, even if they expired a number of years in the past. Designs are available from the start of the current design system in the early 2000s. Spain has launched an Open Data site at https://sede.oepm.gob. es/eSede/datos/es/index.html. It offers monthly or weekly folders of bibliographic, legal, citation/ECLA, and full text data to download in XML or SGML format, as well as monthly folders of all pdf patent documents. The Surechem chemical patent database is now free again as SureCHEMBL, provided by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory at https://www.surechembl.org/search/. This system allows free searching by molecular structure, or partial structure, using an in-browser structure-drawing app. It is possible to search for exact, partial, or similar structures, and give a minimum/maximum molecular weight. Additionally, it is possible to search by keyword in title, claims, or description; by publication, application, or priority numbers or dates; by applicant, inventor, or agent; or by ECLA, CPC, IPC, or US class. The database currently covers US and EP applications and grants, PCT applications, and JP official English abstracts with specific chemical annotations. Additionally, all the EPO DocDB content is covered for non-structure search. Searching with a chemical structure produces a list of molecules with their structure, systematic name, and molecular weight. It is also possible at this point to retrieve Unichem cross-references. Clicking through to the main chemical record page brings up further data on the compound and a list of patents. Searching by patent number or text fields produces a result list of patents with patent number, publication date, IPC, applicant and title. Clicking on an applicant at this
stage inserts the applicant name into the search form. It is possible to add images to the result list. The individual patent records include bibliographic data, full text description and claim, and specification documents to download. Clicking on the CPC in the individual patent record page links to the Espacenet classification search. It is possible to export a list of chemicals mentioned in each patent to csv or XML. In the future, it is promised that the individual chemical pages will include a breakdown of the number of patents in which the chemical appears and whether it is mentioned in the title, abstract, claims, or description. The international trade mark database TMView, at https://www. tmdn.org/tmview/welcome#, now has data from Iceland and Tunisia. The latter is the first country using Arabic script to join the database, and it is possible to search for Arabic-script mark text in the normal search box. WIPO have launched a new linguistic translation facility called WIPO Pearl, at http://www.wipo.int/wipopearl/search/home.html. Inputting a word retrieves synonyms in all official WIPO languages from curated dictionaries or WIPO machine translation tools, with the option to show them in context within a sample paragraph. The dictionary results include a rating for the strength of the synonym. It is possible to filter results within a specific subject area. The system also has browsable concept maps for each official WIPO language in the form of bubble diagrams, which can be expanded to show synonyms, broader or narrower terms, and related terms. Clicking on a term brings up a list of other-language synonyms in context. The WIPO Global Brand Database at http://www.wipo.int/ branddb/en/index.jsp has added trade marks from Cambodia. Philip Eagle The British Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB, United Kingdom E-mail address: [email protected].
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
World Patent Information journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/worpatin
News on patent, trademark and design databases on the internet The Australian patent database Auspat, at http://pericles. ipaustralia.gov.au/ols/auspat/, has undergone a visual revamp to make it clearer and more usable. The simple “quick search” search box has now been added to the front page of the database. Brazil is now once again offering free access to its databases of patents, trade marks, designs, and computer program copyright, although downloading documents still requires free registration. The databases themselves appear similar to their previous functionality, and are available at http://epatentes.inpi.gov.br/ for patents, http://www.inpi.gov.br/portal/artigo/emarcas for trade marks, and https://gru.inpi.gov.br/pPI/servlet/LoginController? action¼Login&BasePesquisa¼Desenhos for designs. A new update of Espacenet features a number of improvements. The Descriptions and Claims tabs in the document view now include links to “also published as” documents, to quickly reach official document texts in a different language if required and available. A “claims tree” depicting dependent claims in an expandable and collapsible tree format is now available as an additional tab within the Claims tab. It is now possible to easily submit suggested corrections to the machine-translated text of descriptions and claims. Within the Classification Search screen, there are alternate toggle buttons to exclude or interleave 2000-series classifications. The EPO Patent Register site at http://www.epo.org/searching/ free/register.html has also been updated. RSS feed notification messages now include the search strategy in the header. The legal representative name is now included in the results list. Dispatch of Rule 164 search results (supplementary searches for inventions not searched by the EPO in the international phase) is now included as an event in the status records. Applications can now be searched for by grant date and by appeal case number. The file wrapper display allows the list of opposition-related documents to be filtered by the specific opponent using a pull-down menu. Finally, it is possible for registered users to have greater control over which events in the life of an application are alerted for by email notifications. The Expert search of the German DEPATISNET site at https:// depatisnet.dpma.de has been redesigned to make it possible for people who are not fully familiar with the syntax to use a pulldown menu to select individual search fields, and buttons to create operators or wildcards. It is possible to hide these or the result list configuration options to save screen space. India has reportedly launched new “Stock and Flow” utilities to monitor the status of patents and trade marks at http://www. ipindia.nic.in/dynamic_Utility_Index.htm for patents and http:// ipindiaonline.gov.in/progress/stockandflow.aspx or http:// ipindiaonline.gov.in/progress/ for trade marks. I have been unable to access these sites recently to check, but they reportedly include tools to provide ceased and expired patents, disposal reports for patent applications, examination report issues, reported working http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wpi.2014.12.004 0172-2190
of patents, and general patent and trade mark status. The patent utilities can be searched by a mixture of known number, patentee, year, and regional patent office branch, while the trade mark ones show all applications at a particular selected stage at present. The Japanese patent office has a web page at http://www.jpo.go. jp/shiryou_e/s_sonota_e/fips_e/mokuji_e.htm offering translations into English of the IP laws of a wide range of countries, as well as international treaties and conventions. The page has been up since 2009, although I was only recently alerted to it. The South Korean IP database KIPRIS, at http://www.kipris.or. kr/enghome/main.jsp, has a new default “All” option on the basic search that allows a simultaneous keyword search on all forms of IP. The result page is divided into separate sections for patent, design and trade marks, with a filter set at the top left that allows an individual type of IP to be selected. Clicking the “Click here for advanced search” button with all three types of IP displayed does not bring up a true advanced search, but only boxes to add new AND or NOT terms. A new separate site for the paid translation service has been set up at http://www.k2epat.com, but it is currently only available in Korean. A full launch will occur early in 2015. Nigeria now has a registered copyright database at http://www. eregistration.copyright.gov.ng/search/advance. It can be searched by keyword, medium, author, title, registration number, and copyright owner. Individual records include all this data, plus contact details for the owner, which may be a telephone number or email address. Singapore has rebranded its IP databases as IP2SG. They are available at http://www.ipos.gov.sg/Services/FilingandRegistration/ GettingStartedwitheServices/eSearch.aspx. The same search interface applies to all of them and has a “Fast Search”, “Simple Search”, and “Advanced Search”. The “Fast Search” can be used to find patents, trade marks, or designs by keyword or number in a single search box. It can also be used to retrieve IP forms, or issues of the official journals from the last three months. The “Simple Search” uses radio buttons to select a search for forms, IP, journals, Nice classifications, or patent abstracts/specifications using fielded search forms. The “IP” option searches any form of IP by application number, filing data, applicant, agent, or case number. Tick box options add additional fields for patents, trade marks, or designs, including the usual variety of search options plus status. More unusual search options include separate trade mark search boxes for transliterated or translated trade marks, phonetic similarity, and original Chinese characters. The specific “Patents abstract & specification” “Simple Search” form offers more detailed searches by keyword with or without stemming, along with the usual options of date, inventor, applicant, IPC, and so forth. Again it is possible to search by status. The Advanced Search allows creation of more complex search statements with fields selected from a pull-down menu linked by Boolean operators, again selected from pull-down menus. The Advanced
2
News on patent, trademark and design databases on the internet / World Patent Information xxx (2015) 1e2
Search also requires selection of patent, trade mark or design search using radio buttons. The result list pages for patents show bibliographic details, while those for trade marks and designs can be set to show images and bibliographic details, or images only. There is no explicit coverage statement. Bibliographic data for patents is available as far back as the 1930s with full specs from the late 1970s. The trade mark database appears to contain marks from the 1930s, even if they expired a number of years in the past. Designs are available from the start of the current design system in the early 2000s. Spain has launched an Open Data site at https://sede.oepm.gob. es/eSede/datos/es/index.html. It offers monthly or weekly folders of bibliographic, legal, citation/ECLA, and full text data to download in XML or SGML format, as well as monthly folders of all pdf patent documents. The Surechem chemical patent database is now free again as SureCHEMBL, provided by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory at https://www.surechembl.org/search/. This system allows free searching by molecular structure, or partial structure, using an in-browser structure-drawing app. It is possible to search for exact, partial, or similar structures, and give a minimum/maximum molecular weight. Additionally, it is possible to search by keyword in title, claims, or description; by publication, application, or priority numbers or dates; by applicant, inventor, or agent; or by ECLA, CPC, IPC, or US class. The database currently covers US and EP applications and grants, PCT applications, and JP official English abstracts with specific chemical annotations. Additionally, all the EPO DocDB content is covered for non-structure search. Searching with a chemical structure produces a list of molecules with their structure, systematic name, and molecular weight. It is also possible at this point to retrieve Unichem cross-references. Clicking through to the main chemical record page brings up further data on the compound and a list of patents. Searching by patent number or text fields produces a result list of patents with patent number, publication date, IPC, applicant and title. Clicking on an applicant at this
stage inserts the applicant name into the search form. It is possible to add images to the result list. The individual patent records include bibliographic data, full text description and claim, and specification documents to download. Clicking on the CPC in the individual patent record page links to the Espacenet classification search. It is possible to export a list of chemicals mentioned in each patent to csv or XML. In the future, it is promised that the individual chemical pages will include a breakdown of the number of patents in which the chemical appears and whether it is mentioned in the title, abstract, claims, or description. The international trade mark database TMView, at https://www. tmdn.org/tmview/welcome#, now has data from Iceland and Tunisia. The latter is the first country using Arabic script to join the database, and it is possible to search for Arabic-script mark text in the normal search box. WIPO have launched a new linguistic translation facility called WIPO Pearl, at http://www.wipo.int/wipopearl/search/home.html. Inputting a word retrieves synonyms in all official WIPO languages from curated dictionaries or WIPO machine translation tools, with the option to show them in context within a sample paragraph. The dictionary results include a rating for the strength of the synonym. It is possible to filter results within a specific subject area. The system also has browsable concept maps for each official WIPO language in the form of bubble diagrams, which can be expanded to show synonyms, broader or narrower terms, and related terms. Clicking on a term brings up a list of other-language synonyms in context. The WIPO Global Brand Database at http://www.wipo.int/ branddb/en/index.jsp has added trade marks from Cambodia. Philip Eagle The British Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB, United Kingdom E-mail address: [email protected].