- Email: [email protected]
News on patent, trademark and design databases on the Internet
World Patent Information 35 (2013) 60–61
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
World Patent Information journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/worpatin
News on patent, trademark and design databases on the Internet
The unofficial US site ArchPatent, at http://www.archpatent. com, has launched improvements to its functionality. The option to search granted patents, applications, or both is now available as a drop-down menu option on the basic search page. On the results page, functionality has been added to reorder results by issue date, filing date and number, as well as relevance. Filters are available on the results page to select specific US classifications, original assignees, applicants, examiners, and agents. It is now possible to save searches in the “workspace” area. The IP Office in Canada now has a page offering mp3 recordings of sound trade marks at http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernetinternetopic.nsf/eng/wr03433.html. This is interesting, as most national offices still require a visual representation of sound marks, which effectively limits registration to musical tunes. A small number of individual British patents dated before the previous cut off point of 1890-ish have been added to EspacenetÒ. Bibliographic data is variable with some not yet having searchable title and applicant data, although some have the applicant name visible and searchable within the abstract. Publication date is not visible but can be searched by year, making it possible to see what has been added. The most celebrated ones to be added are two eighteenth-century patents by James Watt for steam engines, but others that are available do not appear to have been selected on grounds of fame or historical significance. Google Patents, at http://www.google.com/?tbm¼pts, has added European Patent Office documents to its previous holdings of US material. The Google Patents result page for an individual document now also has a “Find Prior Art” button that attempts to find other relevant material by performing a semantic analysis of the document and deriving search terms to search all content indexed by Google. The resulting list of pages and documents includes a list of the search terms derived and used and allows manual selection or deletion of them, as well as a date range selector. It is also possible to see just the results derived from any of Google’s Web, Scholar, Patents, Books or People search engines. The Indian patent office has revamped searching on the IPAIRS database at http://124.124.193.245/patentsearch/search/index. aspx. Search fields now available include title or abstract keyword; application, PCT application and grant numbers; applicant or inventor name and address; application, publication and grant dates; and IPC classification. There is a new “containing” operator which allows searching in all fields with truncation at both ends (useful not just for title keywords but also partially-known application numbers), and a “not containing” operator which acts as a NOT. It is also possible to create AND and OR links between search terms. File wrapper and status information should be available for applications since 1995. The result page displays application number, grant number, title and filing date. The record page for an individual 0172-2190/$ – see front matter http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wpi.2012.09.003
document then offers links to “e-register” (status), orders or decisions, “view documents” (file wrapper) and HTML full text. India has also launched an “Electronic Register of Patent Agents” at http://124.124.193.245/Agentregister/agentlisttest.aspx. This is searchable by name, state or city, and registration number. The result page displays the agent name, number, city/state and registration expiry year, and more details, including contact details, are available on individual records. The Israel patent office’s patent database available at http:// www.ilpatsearch.justice.gov.il/UI/MainPage.aspxnow includes file wrappers, starting with applications published at the end of August 2012. The file wrapper material is included under the “application documents” link on the individual record. Bibliographic data and specifications are now available as far back as 1917, during the UK administration of Palestine. The English-language version of the South Korean KIPRIS database at http://eng.kipris.or.krhas made some improvements. Fee payment information is now available on the English-language status page, and more explanation has been added to the status pages. Search keywords are now highlighted in abstracts and bibliographic information is now available one month before publication of the English abstract. The New Zealand IP office has made improvements to its trade mark and design databases at http://www.iponz.govt.nz/. It is now possible to use AND, OR, and phrase searching (using quotation marks) in the client search system used to find TM and design applicants. The databases has also been updated so that searches in the mark text and design title fields, and the client search system, will retrieve results that contain the text entered with accents and diacriticals if the marks were not present in the search, and vice-versa. National trade marks from Hungary have now been added to the OHIM TMView database at http://tmview.europa.eu. The Taiwan IP office now has a file wrapper database available in English at https://tiponet.tipo.gov.tw/S090/UC090-C06/ InquiryPatentCaseCensorInfo.do?language¼en. The English search interface currently allows searching only by application, publication or grant number. The result page gives brief details (mainly in Chinese) of the patent and its status information, and a list of documents with brief standardised English-language descriptions. The majority of the documents are provided as TIFF files which makes it impossible to select or copy text. The database covers applications from 2003 on and re-examination documents from December 2011 on. Post-grant documents are not published. WIPO has followed the EPO in introducing an online interface to allow third parties to submit prior art in relation to patent applications. A new “submit observation” link has been added to the individual record pages on Patentscope, at http://patentscope.wipo.int/. To submit observations, a WIPO user account is required.
News on patent, trademark and design databases on the Internet / World Patent Information 35 (2013) 60–61
Observations can only be submitted within 28 months of the priority date, and may only relate to novelty or inventive step. Only one observation per person is allowed on any one application, and there is a maximum of ten observations per application in total, presumably to dissuade pressure groups from encouraging the submission of multiple low quality observations on particular applications. Up to ten cited documents are permitted per observation, and observers are encouraged to attach copies of the documents and required to explain what specific content in each document is relevant to the application. The full text of the observation, but not the attached documents, will be publicly visible on Patentscope, although it is up to the observer whether their identity will be
61
publicly visible. There does not appear to be any means of searching specifically for applications which have had observations submitted. Patentscope has also added Japanese patent documents from 2004 to date, but only the title is available in English and abstracts have not been translated. Neither have applicant or inventor names been transliterated into the Roman alphabet. Philip Eagle The British Library, Business and Intellectual Property Centre, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB, UK E-mail address: [email protected]
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
World Patent Information journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/worpatin
News on patent, trademark and design databases on the Internet
The unofficial US site ArchPatent, at http://www.archpatent. com, has launched improvements to its functionality. The option to search granted patents, applications, or both is now available as a drop-down menu option on the basic search page. On the results page, functionality has been added to reorder results by issue date, filing date and number, as well as relevance. Filters are available on the results page to select specific US classifications, original assignees, applicants, examiners, and agents. It is now possible to save searches in the “workspace” area. The IP Office in Canada now has a page offering mp3 recordings of sound trade marks at http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernetinternetopic.nsf/eng/wr03433.html. This is interesting, as most national offices still require a visual representation of sound marks, which effectively limits registration to musical tunes. A small number of individual British patents dated before the previous cut off point of 1890-ish have been added to EspacenetÒ. Bibliographic data is variable with some not yet having searchable title and applicant data, although some have the applicant name visible and searchable within the abstract. Publication date is not visible but can be searched by year, making it possible to see what has been added. The most celebrated ones to be added are two eighteenth-century patents by James Watt for steam engines, but others that are available do not appear to have been selected on grounds of fame or historical significance. Google Patents, at http://www.google.com/?tbm¼pts, has added European Patent Office documents to its previous holdings of US material. The Google Patents result page for an individual document now also has a “Find Prior Art” button that attempts to find other relevant material by performing a semantic analysis of the document and deriving search terms to search all content indexed by Google. The resulting list of pages and documents includes a list of the search terms derived and used and allows manual selection or deletion of them, as well as a date range selector. It is also possible to see just the results derived from any of Google’s Web, Scholar, Patents, Books or People search engines. The Indian patent office has revamped searching on the IPAIRS database at http://124.124.193.245/patentsearch/search/index. aspx. Search fields now available include title or abstract keyword; application, PCT application and grant numbers; applicant or inventor name and address; application, publication and grant dates; and IPC classification. There is a new “containing” operator which allows searching in all fields with truncation at both ends (useful not just for title keywords but also partially-known application numbers), and a “not containing” operator which acts as a NOT. It is also possible to create AND and OR links between search terms. File wrapper and status information should be available for applications since 1995. The result page displays application number, grant number, title and filing date. The record page for an individual 0172-2190/$ – see front matter http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wpi.2012.09.003
document then offers links to “e-register” (status), orders or decisions, “view documents” (file wrapper) and HTML full text. India has also launched an “Electronic Register of Patent Agents” at http://124.124.193.245/Agentregister/agentlisttest.aspx. This is searchable by name, state or city, and registration number. The result page displays the agent name, number, city/state and registration expiry year, and more details, including contact details, are available on individual records. The Israel patent office’s patent database available at http:// www.ilpatsearch.justice.gov.il/UI/MainPage.aspxnow includes file wrappers, starting with applications published at the end of August 2012. The file wrapper material is included under the “application documents” link on the individual record. Bibliographic data and specifications are now available as far back as 1917, during the UK administration of Palestine. The English-language version of the South Korean KIPRIS database at http://eng.kipris.or.krhas made some improvements. Fee payment information is now available on the English-language status page, and more explanation has been added to the status pages. Search keywords are now highlighted in abstracts and bibliographic information is now available one month before publication of the English abstract. The New Zealand IP office has made improvements to its trade mark and design databases at http://www.iponz.govt.nz/. It is now possible to use AND, OR, and phrase searching (using quotation marks) in the client search system used to find TM and design applicants. The databases has also been updated so that searches in the mark text and design title fields, and the client search system, will retrieve results that contain the text entered with accents and diacriticals if the marks were not present in the search, and vice-versa. National trade marks from Hungary have now been added to the OHIM TMView database at http://tmview.europa.eu. The Taiwan IP office now has a file wrapper database available in English at https://tiponet.tipo.gov.tw/S090/UC090-C06/ InquiryPatentCaseCensorInfo.do?language¼en. The English search interface currently allows searching only by application, publication or grant number. The result page gives brief details (mainly in Chinese) of the patent and its status information, and a list of documents with brief standardised English-language descriptions. The majority of the documents are provided as TIFF files which makes it impossible to select or copy text. The database covers applications from 2003 on and re-examination documents from December 2011 on. Post-grant documents are not published. WIPO has followed the EPO in introducing an online interface to allow third parties to submit prior art in relation to patent applications. A new “submit observation” link has been added to the individual record pages on Patentscope, at http://patentscope.wipo.int/. To submit observations, a WIPO user account is required.
News on patent, trademark and design databases on the Internet / World Patent Information 35 (2013) 60–61
Observations can only be submitted within 28 months of the priority date, and may only relate to novelty or inventive step. Only one observation per person is allowed on any one application, and there is a maximum of ten observations per application in total, presumably to dissuade pressure groups from encouraging the submission of multiple low quality observations on particular applications. Up to ten cited documents are permitted per observation, and observers are encouraged to attach copies of the documents and required to explain what specific content in each document is relevant to the application. The full text of the observation, but not the attached documents, will be publicly visible on Patentscope, although it is up to the observer whether their identity will be
61
publicly visible. There does not appear to be any means of searching specifically for applications which have had observations submitted. Patentscope has also added Japanese patent documents from 2004 to date, but only the title is available in English and abstracts have not been translated. Neither have applicant or inventor names been transliterated into the Roman alphabet. Philip Eagle The British Library, Business and Intellectual Property Centre, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB, UK E-mail address: [email protected]