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Survey of the Annual Technical Reports 1995 of the Patent Offices on Patent Information Activities
World Patent Information, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 55-64, 1997 8 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0172-2190/97 $17.00 + 0.00
Pergamon
PII:So172-2190(%9
Survey of the Annual Technical Reports 1995 of the Patent Offices on Patent Information Activities J E Sibley Introduction
Matters concerning the generation, reproduction, distribution and use of primary and secondary sources of patent information
The Annual Reports 1995 on Patent Information Activities submitted by Industrial Property and Patent Offices to the WIPO Permanent Committee on Patent and Industrial Property Information (PCIPI) and published by WIPO in the series denoted PCIPU ATRIPYl995IxY (where XY represents the country code of the office providing the respective report), are surveyed in the following article. Each report summarises the activities in 1995 of the relevant office in the patent information and documentation fields and in some cases, indicates its plans for the future. They thus provide a valuable overview of the ongoing activities of the offices and give some indication of the future developments in these activities. The survey concentrates on what appear from the reports to be new developments in 1995 and the progress of developing projects.
In Armenia, publication of the Official Gazette entitled Industrial Property has started. The Gazette contains four sections. These are Legislative and other normative documents; Inventions; Indexes; and Reports. The Gazette includes: Patent Law of the Republic of Armenia. Regulation on filing and examination of requests for discontinuance on the territory of the Republic of Armenia of U.S.S.R. inventors’ certificates for inventions, U.S.S.R. patents issued in the name of the U.S.S.R. State Invention Foundation and on granting of patents of the Republic of Armenia for the remainder of the term.
The survey is based upon reports received by the Editor by the middle of November 1996 and covers the reports of the following offices:
Registration at the Armenian Patent Office for inventions and industrial designs of the U.S.S.R. and former states of U.S.S.R.
Armenia (AM), Austria (AT), Australia (AU), Bulgaria (BG), Brazil (BR), Belarus (BY), Canada (CA), Switzerland (CH), China (CN), Cuba (CU), Czech Republic (CZ), Germany (DE), Denmark (DK), Estonia (EE), Egypt (EG), European Patent Office (EP), Spain (ES), Finland (FI), United Kingdom (GB), Kyrgyzstan (KG), Republic of Korea (KR), Kazakstan(KZ), Croatia (HR), Hungary (HU), Ireland (IE), Japan (JP), Lithuania (LT), Latvia (LV), Maroc (MA), The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (MK), Mongolia (MN), Mexico (MX), Malaysia (MY), The Netherlands (NL), Norway (NO), Peru (PE), Poland (PL), Romania (RO), Sweden (SE), Slovakia (SK), Tunisia (TN), Ukraine (UA), United States of America (US), Vietnam (VN).
Provisional regulations on fees for the protection of industrial property rights. List of Patent Attorneys Armenian Patent Office.
registered
in the
Information on 56 Georgia (including four reregistered).
registered
patents
The legislative and other normative published in Armenian and Russian.
documents
are
Since December 1995, Austrian utility model publications are being issued in addition to the Austrian patent specifications on the AT CD-ROM with a backdating to number 1 of 1994. A survey has been made of the collection of documents in the Library which showed that nearly 1.9 million documents were
In the survey the items are grouped under the headings recommended for the reports by WIPO. 55
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added to the collection in 1995, of which nearly 1.4 million went directly to the Library and over 0.5 million were added to the search files.
The Cuban Office published three issues of the Official Gazette and 93 patent descriptions. These are available on paper or in floppy disk form.
In 1995, the Bulgarian Office continued to publish two series of Official Bulletins, one of which is in English. Bibliographic data and abstracts were given for 872 applications for patents and for 320 granted patents for inventions. Similar data were given for 99 utility model applications and for eight granted patents for utility models. The Office has continued to supply bibliographic data and abstracts from the period 1992/ 1993 for the ESPACE-PRECES CD-ROM products. In 1995, the texts of 455 specifications and 26 numbers of the Official Bulletin were composed by word processing.
The Czech Office published 1092 patent documents and 998 utility mo els. These were included on the CD-ROM ESPA 8 E PRECES, and abstracts and drawings of the patent applications are given in the monthly Official Gazette.
The Brazilian Office published 4067 granted patents. The Belarus Patent Office has included a new subsection in the Official Bulletin to cover PCT applications entering the national phase. The number of PCT applications published in 1995 totalled 85. Beginning in 1995, a new system of numbering applications for titles of protection was introduced; each number consists of six figures, the first two denoting the year of filing and the other four indicating the serial number of the application. Belgospatent began publishing patent specifications to patents of Belarus applications filed directly with the Office; 582 of these specifications were published. Also in 1995, a concept for the automation of the Office complex was developed and approved; this foresaw the creation of nine interconnected subsystems, of which one is a subsystem for automation of the Examination Department for Inventions. Within this framework, it will be possible to carry out examina; tion procedures and communicate with applicants, as well as to record decisions with regard to the registering of industrial property rights. This information is then transmitted to other divisions, such as the Editorial and Publishing Department for publishing of Official Bulletins, and the State Register. The Chinese Patent Office stopped the production of microfiche products in 1995 in order to meet the growing demand for CD-ROMs. 1250 disks were produced; among them, 240 were for the China Patent Database CD-ROM and the remainder were for the Full-text Patent Specifications CD-ROM. The Full-text China Patent Specification database system was formally put into operation in the first half of 1995. The system contains full-text specifications of all applications for patents of invention and for utility models. Six workstations have been set up through the FDDI data transfer network which serves all examination departments in the Office. By the end of 1995, about 50 workstations had been installed in the CPO for data retrieval and administration tasks.
Since January 1995, the German patent documents have been published on the CD-ROM DEPAROM. By order of the GPO, new search software has been developed on the basis of MS-WindowsTM for the DEPAROM series. The Bundesdruckerei GmbH, Berlin, has taken a licence for using this software and is now responsible for production and distribution of DEPAROM. The GPO can offer a licence to other national offices and CD-ROM producers. At present there are five DEPAROM products. DEPAROM-ACT-facsimile CD-ROM containing first publications and patent specifications (A and C documents) of the German Patent Offtce as well as the claims of European patent applications in German translation and international applications in German translation (Il); published weekly; replaces the former ESPACE-DE as of 1 January 1995. DEPAROM-U-facsimile CD-ROM with utility models (Ul) of the German Patent Office; published every three weeks; replaces the former ESPACE-DE-U as of 1 January 1995. DEPAROM-T2-facsimile CD-ROM with the German translation of European patent specifications (T2-T4); published weekly; the CD-ROM also includes the full text in coded form. DEPAROM-CLASS-facsimile CD-ROM containing all patent and utility model publications having protective effect in Germany (DE, EP, WO); divided into 46 sub-editions based on the units of the International Patent Classification; published at irregular intervals depending on the volume of new information, updates at least every five months; there are two variants: Variant A contains all first publications WIPO, EPO and GPO
of
Variant B contains all publications of WIPO, EPO and GPO DEPAROM-KOMPAKT-index CD-ROM containing published unexamined applications (Al), patent specifications (Cl-C4) and utility models (Ul) of the German Patent Office as well
Patent Information Activities
as claims of European patent applications in German translation (Tl), international applications in German translation (Tl) and translation of European patent specifications claiming industrial property rights in Germany (T2-T4); comprises bibliographic data and abstracts (as far as available) in searchable form; published every two months; starting with the 27th publication week 1991. DEPAROM provides a uniform user interface for all DEPAROM series. The regular aperture card production of DE-publications (Al, Cl-C4, Tl, Ul) was stopped. Since 1 January 1996, aperture cards have only been produced at the request of individual customers. The Danish Office started in-house production of the Gazette and found that this resulted in considerable reductions in printing costs. In mid-1995 a contract was signed with a Danish contractor to completely renew the entire IT system. The new system will handle all procedures, including patents, trademarks and utility models in one integrated system. The system will be paperless; all applications, letters, reports, etc., will be scanned. E-mail and the work flow system will be the means of distribution of the applications to examiners. An extensive Business Process Reingineering project has been undertaken resulting inter alia in the formulation of the automated working procedures of the Office. Implementation will start in 1996. The Egyptian Office publishes a patent abstract gazette every three months which is sent to universities and industrial company research institutes. Codes are now added for the bibliographic data. The EPO range of CD-ROM products has expanded to 29 series covering 61 countries. Twelve products have reached the prototype stage: ASEANPAT, CN, CN-ACCESS, DOPALES, IN, MC, MX, RU-ACCESS, TH, MY and BR. Six products are under development: IE, SI, GR, ID and ACCESSEU. In 1995, the new interface and authoring software MIMOSA-a trilateral co-operation product-was released. The first MIMOSA formatted CD-ROM is expected in the third quarter of 1996. This will be the MIMOSA version of ESPACE-FIRST. The present system of only laying the Irish “A” documents open to public inspection with photocopies being made available on request is to change soon to a CD-ROM multiple publication method. The mixedmode disks will be known as ESPACE-IE. These will start in 1995 and a five year back file will be converted in stages. The “B” documents will continue to be published and stored on paper. Work on the produc-
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tion of an internal search file containing the bibliographic data, together with abstract and drawings, similar to the First Page database, continues. During 1995, various programs which generate journal output have been rewritten to provide the data in a form suitable for desktop publishing. The Kyrgyzstan Patent Office issued its Officipl Gazette which included 40 reported inventions; 20 patents and 20 preliminary patents for inventions. The Gazette, which is published quarterly, includes the bibliographic data on the registered patents and preliminary patents. The Gazette is produced using a PC and DTP technology. The inventions are classified using the IPC’. Korea published 40,501 unexamined patent applications, 15,214 examined patent applications, 3701 unexamined utility model applications, and 10,693 examined utility model applications. Optical disks are used for storage of the full-text images. Croatia published 581 patent applications which were spread over the whole range of technology, with CO7C attracting the most; some 81 applications (nearly 14%). So far, no patents have been granted. Copies can be ordered from InfoPat, the library, information and documentation centre of the Office. The Hungarian Patent Office continues to issue the HUNPATEKA CD-ROM. In 1995, the last issue was the 1995/4, which covered the Gazette of Patents and Trademarks of 29 December 1995. HUNPATEKA is issued on the ARCTIS platform developed by ARCANUM Databases, with Hungarian and English user interfaces. The computerised system was developed further and consists of a multi-user, ORACLE-based bibliographic and administrative database. It is worth noting that in 1995, Japan published 337,100 unexamined patent applications, 45,102 unexamined utility model applications, 123,360 examined patent applications and 56,640 examined utility model specifications. A total of 79 CDROMs were published containing the unexamined patent applications, and a further 60 CD-ROMs of examined patent applications; however, with the introduction of the pro-grant opposition system, the latter will stop in March 1996. Paper-based publication of translated international patent and utility model applications stopped in October 1995 with the start of publication of CD-ROMs containing these data. The Register of Patents of the Republic of Lithuania is a database which contains all bibliographic and legal status data which can be used to generate the Official Gazette, the Front Pages, etc., and the ESPACEPRECES CD-ROM. It is expected that the software will be replaced in 1996. The Latvian Office produces paper copies of the B-documents, but lays the applications open to public
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inspection in the Office. Photocopies are provided on demand. The monthly Latvian Patent Bulletin contains bibliographic data on inventions, trademarks and designs. Patent specifications will be published on ESPACE-PRECES CD-ROMs. The Industrial Property Protection Office of the Republic of Macedonia issues an Official Gazette Glusnik quarterly. The gazette contains details of published patents and their abstracts together with other information about other Office activities. It often contains commentaries on actual procedures for obtaining protection of industrial property rights. During 1995, the Mongolian Official Gazette contained data on 117 examined patents for inventions, 1200 trademarks, 13 1 industrial designs and 275 innovations. In the same period, the Ukrainian Patent Office (SPOU) published eight issues of the Official gazette which contained data on 6100 patents for inventions and four utility models. SPOU published 3166 patent specifications as well as 1110 protective documents for patents granted on the basis of re-registration of the U.S.S.R. patents and inventors certificates. Work continued on the electronic publication in the form of a database containing text files and image files. Dissemination of electronic publications was realised by TV broadcasting in the metrewave band or by diskette. In November 1994, the Mexican office signed an agreement with the EPO for the initiation of the series of ESPACE-MX covering the complete documents of applications filed from January 1995. The first masters are planned for the last quarter of 1996. In Peru, The Inventions and New Technology Office periodically publishes the Industrial Property Gazette which constitutes a primary source of patent information with technical documents relating to patents and utility models organised by IPC. Information on unexamined patent applications is published in national circulation newspapers. Granted patents are published in the Gazette. The Polish Patent Office has published an “EnglishPolish glossary of patent information terms”. The Romanian State Office for Inventions and Trademarks (OSIM) started in-house publication using an internal DTP system that includes data downloading posts and DTP posts. As a result of the adoption of the Common Software in OSIM, the BOPITrademarks is being achieved by computer, using the facilities offered by the Common Software. WordPerfect for DOS version 6.0 is being used in the DTP process. During the substantive examination, the abstract and description provided by the applicant are given the form needed to comply with their informative purpose and the document is classified.
Work has continued in the USPTO to obtain significant integration of its examiner office automation with the retrieval system. The smaller PCs on each examiner’s desk are being replaced with highcapacity workstations which have the capability to retrieve and display U.S. patents and world-wide abstracts. Beginning with September 1995 issues, patents were printed for distribution directly from a tape using the Postscript page description language. This resulted in higher quality, reduced costs and virtually 100% availability on issue date. During 1995, the Vietnam Office published 56 granted patent specifications, 24 granted utility models, and 711 registered designs. The Office used PCs for editing, searching and printing patent documents and has published a Vietnamese Catchword Index.
Matters concerning abstracting, classifying, reclassifying and indexing of technical information contained in patent documents IPC version 6 became effective on 1 January 1995 and most of the offices started to classify their patent documents with the new version. Offices do not reclassify documents with IPC symbols from earlier versions of the classification. Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and Malaysia continue to use IPC’. The Canadian Patent Classification continues to be used as the primary classification for all patents issued from an application filed under the previous Patent Act that existed prior to 1 October 1989 as well as for related divisional and reissue applications. There is an ongoing reclassification for all applications files after 1 October 1989 in IPC subclasses C07K and A61K (peptides only). These documents are being reclassified to IPC6 from IPC5. The Swiss Patent Office reclassifies foreign patents which carry non-existent IPC symbols, whilst the Brazilian Patent Office reclassifies old Brazilian documents and those with erroneous symbols. The Chinese Patent Office adds keywords to their patent documents and produces a synonym list to aid searching. They also translate bibliographic data and abstracts of Chinese patents into English. The German Office has checked the classification of newly published documents and abstracts to be included in their search file and, if necessary, added classification symbols relating to the internal subdivisions of the GPO, which are further subdivisions of the IPC. It is obligatory to use hybrid classification on all German patent applications. The indexing codes allotted are contained and searchable in the online database PATDPA. Since 28 July 1995, it has been possible to search for file numbers of supplementary
Patent Information Activities
protection certificates for medical products in the German Patent and Utility Model Register. Additionally, with the introduction of version III of the DPINFO information system on 10 August 1995, it is possible to search in the Industrial Design Register for name of applicants and applicants’ numbers. The development of the DPINFO system is continuing, and one improvement planned is to optimise searching for industrial designs. About 1400 abstracts of Danish patents which have no foreign equivalents have been translated into English and loaded into the EPO database systems. The Egyptian office has changed from using a national classification to the IPC, but uses only the main class symbols; Reclassification of all patents from l-19,000 is being undertaken and these data, together with the patent number and title, are stored on microform. Extra data, such as application details, priority details and inventors, are added for patents from 19,001. In 1995, the development of the DOCTOOL software continued in the EPO and there were about 100 users in The Hague, Berlin and Munich. This number should rise to 800 in 1996. DOCTOOL allows examiners to add value to the search database by adding keywords or codes, modifying or deleting data during consultation or study of published documents, and to store these changes in a central place in order to make them available to everyone making searches in the EPOQUE databases. The U.K. Office has continued to update and amend their Classification Key ready for publication on 1 January 1996 and modified various pamphlets to reflect these changes. The Office has also continued to classify EP and PCT published applications in the UK Headings Bl L, G2J and H2E. With effect from 1 January 1995, the Irish office introduced the hybrid system of indexing codes as a mandatory part of the IPC classification data. The Japanese Office has continued to record back file data of PAJ (which originates from unexamined patent applications published between 1976 and 1993) on CD-ROM. The production of these CD-ROMs will be completed by the end of 1996. Since April 1995, these disks have been provided to overseas patent offices as they are produced. Mongolian and English translations of abstracts to inventions will be published on paper by the Mongolian Patent Office starting in 1996. In 1995, the Swedish Office reclassified nearly 200,000 documents to IPC6 or to the corresponding ECLA classes and over 240,000 US documents to take account of the changes to the U.S. classification
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system. The non-US documents are reclassified because the Office uses information from the EPO’s CONDA tape for their own reclassification needs. In Tunisia, only applications in Arabic or French are accepted and the documents are not classified according to the IPC. The USPTO reclassified some 689,000 documents in 1995, of which 295,000 were non-US patents. As of 1 October 1996, new foreign documents will not be classified according to the U.S. classification or added to the paper files. Examiners will rely on commercial databases for these records. The Automated Biotechnology Sequence Search (ABSS) system for searching nucleic and amino acid sequences was continuously enhanced to keep abreast of developments in biotechnology. Over 23,700 sequences were searched, an increase of 15% over 1994.
Activities in the field of computerised and other mechanised search systems The Austrian Office has improved the accessibility to EPOQUE and a computer-assisted search and information system (RISP system) for electronic searching of patent documents on CD-ROM has been elaborated and tested. By using a jukebox administration system temporary electronic search files of IPC classified documents are built up by means of temporary storage on magnetic disk. A computer network is used to make the documents available on screen. It is planned to start this new system at the beginning of 1996. Because of the installation of the RISP system, the collection of patent documents on paper form will not be continued from 1996 onwards. The experimental implementation of an automated system for the administration of patents and trademarks started in the Bulgarian Office who also published their first CD-ROM of national trademarks. An agreement between INPI and the Funda@o Andre Tosello permitted access to the Brazilian Patents database online and it was possible to search all bibliographic data and abstracts of documents published since 1992. The Brazilian Oftice used workstations to access US, EP, JP, FR and PCT documents on CD-ROM. A project approved in 1995 by PADCT will permit the production of a CD-ROM series containing the full Brazilian documents from 1980 to 1993. The Belarus Office has developed a complex automated system containing nine subsystems which cover the needs of all departments; the examining divisions for patents and trademarks, the editorialpublishing department, and the State Register. The system is based on Windows 3.11 and uses the FoxPro
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2.6 management system. A database for innovation (BDl) has been started and presently contains data of about 44,000 innovations from all over the world.
of the full text of the applications (contained in fulltext databases) together with facsimile images of the drawing pages (contained in image databases).
The Canadian Office deployed TECHSOURCE LAN early in 1995 and all examiners are connected to the mainframe via the LAN. This permits communication by e-mail amongst themselves and, via a gateway arrangement, to other employees of CIPO. The Inquire/Text (I/T) and Imageplus portion of TECHSOURCE were deployed in 1995 and all examiners and classifiers have received training on the I/T search and retrieval system. Whilst results have been encouraging, further research and fine tuning will be undertaken in 1996. There is an ongoing study to identify and select a bilingual (English/French) thesaurus for full-text searching using I/T. The back file conversion project was nearly completed, with conversion of the last documents expected in 1996. The image quality has exceeded expectations. CIPO established a home page on the Internet in 1995 which describes the services that CIPO provides and how to apply for them. It also provides links to the home pages of other offices.
Also, in 1995, the Finnish Office started to build a local area network to improve the use of information of the examiners. The LAN is expected to be completed in 1996.
Testing of the retrieval system for Chinese patent documentation began in 1995. Five workstations with large, high-resolution screens were installed in the examination department. The system comprises two parts: one is bibliographic data and abstracts which are stored in a relational database on a UNIX server in coded form; the other comprises facsimile images of full-text data including drawings stored on WORM disks in jukeboxes. After a search, examiners can ask for documents listed in a hit list to be downloaded onto-their hard disk for scrutiny or printing. Programming to upgrade the administrative system has been completed and the test phase has begun. Work continues on the German PATIS patent information system. The pilot stage is now complete and the basic phase started on 1 December 1994. In this basic phase, PATIS is transferred into the operational phase. In the basic phase, the PATIS system consists of IKOFAX workstations, data management components, examiners’ PCs, search system, archive system and operating components connected via an effective communication network based on glass fibre. The same software will be used for all workstations which will provide all search functions in the mask and the command mode. The search system is an open system, and so it is possible to access external databases. At present, all project activities are going according to plan. During 1995, the EPOQUE VIEWER came into service at the EPO. It provides display of the full documents including the first page abstracts and images, for one member per family in the examination process. This online, dual mode access uses the ASCII form
The Korean Office is currently testing the patent and utility model documentation system which was completed in 1994. The system is expected to be in use by 1996. A special task force was formed to lay the foundation for implementing electronic filing within KIPO. The task force analysed the current administrative procedures and looked at the methods used in automation projects in advanced offices. In April 1995, an automation master plan was agreed and software was developed to provide clients with a facility to submit applications on diskette. This was completed by the end of 1995. The Croatian Office is developing a computerised information system covering all phases of the granting and registration procedures of industrial property rights and all other office tasks. The Japanese computerised F-term retrieval system for domestic documents was further developed to cover 2200 technical fields of the 2280 total. At the end of 1995, some 40 million documents were available on the Comprehensive Document Database which is used by examiners to access the primary documents of most major countries. The electronic filing system for patent applications continued to develop with online applications running at 66%, floppy disk at 30% and paper at 4%. Both the Lithuanian Office and the Latvian Office rely on CD-ROMs for retrieval databases, but the Latvian Oftice completed its computer network in 1995 with the aid of the EPO and Norwegian Patent Office. The network is based on a UNIX server and there are 24 networked PCs. The computerised system developed by the Malaysian Office is based on stand-alone PCs but, during 1996, a fully integrated system will be established using Common Software from the EPO. The EC-ASEAN programme will provide consultancy advice on this development. During 1995, the Polish Office extended and improved its search systems. Software was developed for automatically reading the abstracts of patents using a scanner; the software for the financial system was modified especially with regard to payments, and automatic processing of statistics was implemented. The network software changed from Novell 4.02 to 4.1 and the number of users was increased. Access
Patent Information Activities from workstations to subject and bibliographic databases was developed. At the end of 1995, 180 PCs were installed in the Office, 160 of them connected to the network. The automation system of the Romanian Office has undergone considerable improvement in regard to both hardware and software. Like so many offices, the Romanian Office is making use of Common Software. The Ukrainian Office updated their bibliographic database and is developing software to aid the input of the claims into the database. The USPTO continued the development of fully automated patent and trademark search systems as reported in previous years. This year, the Classified Search and Image Retrieval has been deployed to two additional examining groups. The workstation software has been enhanced and has migrated to a windowing environment on a different hardware platform. The workstations have been deployed to 100 examiners in a “dual boot” configuration where the workstation boots up in a UNIX mode to provide CSIR functionality, or in a DOS/Windows environment to provide access to office automation software. A network version of COMmunicatel, an examiner-developed communications software package for PCs, is under development. Biotechnology applications continued to intensify in complexity with regard to the amount of nucleic acid and amino acid sequence information involved with inventions. In 1995, the USPTO’s Automated Biotechnology Sequence Search (ABSS) system was upgraded to include an additional MasPar MPII massively parallel machine. Over 23,700 sequences were searched by STIC staff on this system, an increase of 15% over 1994. The Vietnamese Office is developing a LAN system.
Search file establishment and upkeep Because of the introduction of the RISP system in 1996, the Austrian Oflice will stop the upkeep of the paper file collections of the technical examiners and of the library at the end of 1995. The paper file collections of patent documents prior to 1996 will continue to be used and will be updated regularly.
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documentation on compact optical disks and JOPAL CD-ROM together with the necessary hardware. Allocation of the necessary funds is planned for 1996. The question of creating a special searching and information group for serving examiners is being studied. In 1995, the Spanish office started work on the following CD-ROM patent collections; ESPACE-IT, ESPACE-OAPI, ESPACE-PT, Patent Abstracts of Japan, and US-Patent search. In addition, the new edition of 1PC:CLASS containing the 6th edition of the IPC was made available to examiners. Establishment of an in-house electronic search file for the Irish patent documents is in progress and a change in the storage mode from microfilm to CDs for the full texts is in the process of being established. In accordance with the Decree of the Supreme Rada of Ukraine on the implementation of the law “On the Rights Protection for Inventions and Utility Models”, the patent information database needed for its implementation should be established by 1 July 1997. The formation of an examination support search file is planned, preferably stored on machine-readable carriers. The current search file is based on WIPO publications supplied on CD-ROM and the publications of foreign patent offices received by mutual exchange. In 1995, the search file contained nearly 3000 CD-ROMs. The USPTO is using OCR software to convert images of about 172,000 US patents published between August 1970 and 1975 to text for inclusion in its text search database. This should be completed in 1996. The USPTO is initiating a procurement activity to provide technology refreshment of the established APS optical and magnetic storage devices for image data. The procurement will be divided into two parts. The first will acquire current technology which will be incorporated into the current APS architecture. The second part will acquire current and future technology storage to support commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) document management, work flow, and compound and SGML software products.
Administration of the industrial property library and services available to the public
The search file in the Brazilian Office is based on documents in paper form and this has been organised in accordance with the 6th edition of the IPC at the subgroup level. The file contains more than 10 million documents.
In 1995, the collections of the Armenian Office were transferred to a scientific and technical library so that they could be made available to the public. The use of CD-ROM products was restricted to personnel of the Office because there was no suitable reading room. This problem should be solved in 1996.
The Belarus Office carried out a feasibility study of creating a search file based on the PCT minimum
In Brazil, CEDIN-the Technological Documentation and Information Centre-is primarily responsible
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for the management of collections of patent documentation and information. It provides information for both Office staff and the public. Enterprises which sign a contract with INPI receive copies of the front pages of all documents coming into the search files. The Republican Scientific and Technical Library (RSTL) is the only place in Belarus where one can find the complete collection of patents documents. Economic problems have arisen which mean that new methods for supporting the collection must be found. Three reading halls in RSTL are set aside for those working with patent documentation and there is a consultative station for inventors. In 1995, RSTL became independent of Belgospatent. The Patent Search Room (PSR) in the Canadian Office expanded its automated searching systems with the Japanese Patent Abstracts in English on mixed-mode CD-ROM. The first public deployment of CIPO’s electronic patent database, TECHSOURCE, took place in the PSR. The TECHSOURCE workstations which allow full-text searching and document image delivery were initially installed on a trial basis for patent professionals. Remote access to TECHSOURCE from two regional centres was initiated. This will allow patent agents and the public to search the Canadian database. The CD-ROM reading room of the Chinese Patent Office was further expanded with the number of CD-ROM workstations being increased to 10. By the end of 1995, the Non-Patent Literature reading room had collected 17,431 books and 109,138 issues of periodicals including all the periodicals listed in the PCT minimum documentation. The relationship between the German Patent Office and the regional patent information centres has been altered by an agreement dated 8 December 1994. In the future the centres will receive patent documents on CD-ROM (DEPAROM) instead of paper copies or microfilms. With the new CD-ROM product DEPAROM-CLASS replacing the former aperture cards, visitors to the centres are able to search by IPC. During 1995, patents on CD-ROM from Italy, OAPI, Russia, Slovenia and Japan were added to the collections in the Danish Patent Office reading room. The provision of commercial services is becoming one of the main aims of this Office. In Spain, the Technical Library, which is the unit responsible for the consultation and updating of patent documentation and non-patent literature, underwent substantial renovation. This involved a 25% increase in space, the provision of new microform readers and the provision of an enquiry point for EPOQUE. Eight new CD-ROM workstations, obtained with the assistance of the EPO, were installed.
The Estonian Patent Library is situated separately from the Patent Office. It is housed in a 1903 building not meant for library use. Although it provides a service to the general public, its main task is to serve the needs of the examining and professional staff at the Patent Office. This is the only library which collects and processes patent literature in Estonia; there is no network of libraries. The library provides all the normal services. The Israeli Patent Oftice Library provides the public with the complete collection of Israeli patents along with a partial collection of foreign patent abstracts, mainly from the U.S.A., U.K., France, Germany and the EPO. The Korean Patent Office has designated 15 libraries at regional chambers of commerce and industry and industrial complexes as patent deposit libraries with the object of promoting the use of patent documents and public awareness of industrial property information. These libraries provide search and copy services for the public in the region. These local libraries also provide a consultation service for patent applicants. The Patent Oftice in Kazakstan has no patent library but co-operates with the National Patent Fund (the main patent library) which houses the patent collection which is on paper, microfilm and microfiche. The government has developed a programme for the development of scientific and technical information which includes as an integral part an automated patent information system. The library and information activities of the Croatian Patent Office are carried out by the InfoPat Department which maintains the collections and disseminates industrial property information. There are very few other libraries offering literature or information in this area. In Hungary, services are available to the public in the Patent Library and the Industrial Property Professional Library. These two libraries operate as a section of the Hungarian Patent Office. The Patent Library was reconstructed in 1994 and in 1995 had nearly 3500 readers. The Latvian patent library is housed in a separate building from the Patent Office. This library houses the patent collections together with related literature and technical literature. Latvian patent applications are open to public inspection in the reading room of the Patent Office. The Mongolian Scientific and Technical Information Company (STI.Co) is the national centre for scientific and technological information in Mongolia under the Ministry of Science and Education. STI.Co maintains the patent collections and provides information to Office staff and the public. The library is open to the public for patent searching.
Patent Information Activities
The Peruvian office does not have an Industrial Property library, but it does have the Technological Information Search Service, which is available to third parties on request. In January 1995, the USPTO made the Automated Patent System (APS) available to all the Patent and Trademark Depository Libraries (of which there are 80 located in 49 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico) which pay a subscription fee or establish a deposit account for the service. Currently, 30 libraries have entered subscriptions. Public access to the Classified Search and Image Retrieval (CSIR) system continued into its second full year. During 1995, all US patent documents (since 1790) were loaded into the system to allow for retrieval by US classification. A public reading room and industrial property library are maintained within the same building as the National Office of Industrial Property of Vietnam where any user may obtain domestic or foreign patent information. The public may request state-of-the-art searches, patent documents, and patent family information. Selective patent dissemination is also available. Requests can be made personally or by telephone.
Matters concerning mutual exchange of patent documentation and information The move towards the use of CD-ROM for exchange purposes has continued, although some offices can still only supply documents on paper. The trilateral offices completed the primary development of the mixed-mode CD-ROM software called MIMOSA. This software includes an authoring component which accepts ST-32-conformant SGML patent and trademark documents containing both text and image components as input, performs UNIX-based data indexing, and pre-masters CD-ROMs for replication; and a retrieval component which performs Windowsbased searching, retrieval, downloading, and printing of documents from CD-ROMs authored in MIMOSA. The co-operative software development effort of the USPTO, EPO and WIPO for filing electronic patent applications (EASY) ended in October 1995. The focus of the electronic filing project shifted to the identification and development of electronic filing standards. In 1995, the Bulgarian Patent Office sent bibliographic data and abstracts in English for 1299 applications and granted patents on diskettes to EPIDOS in the Hague and Vienna. Similarly, China has offered the bibliographic data and abstracts of patent applications in English in the form of machine-readable tapes to some offices. The Belarus Office began to receive Official Bulletins from 32 countries and from WIPO and EPO and has
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sent its Official Bulletins to 39 countries, WIPO and EPO. The bulletins are usually received on paper. The Japanese Oftice has provided the EPO and USPTO with the data of 4122 DNA and amino acid sequences. These data relate to sequences disclosed in the applications published from April 1990 through March 1994. The JPO started to analyse the sequences disclosed in applications published by March 1995 and have sent data on a further 1728 sequences. The JPO also translated into English F-term manuals from 100 technical fields and provided them to the EPO and USPTO, together with the corresponding F-term inventories. Romania has sent an official request to WIPO concerning participation in the SARINDI programme, with a view to the generation of a CD-ROM with the industrial designs registered in Romania. The USPTO is developing a prototype for the electronic filing of patent applications based on commercial off-the-shelf software packages. This is scheduled for implementation on 1 August 1996.
Other relevant matters concerning education and training in, and promotion of, the use of patent information, including technical assistance to developing countries Many offices report assistance to developing countries in various ways, either under schemes operated by WIPO, including performing searches and/or examinations, or under bilateral agreements. Technical assistance and training has been offered to many developing countries by experts from many offices. Most offices report the holding of training courses or seminars for their nationals or officials from developing countries and elaborate on their efforts to disseminate patent information. Examples of this are: Brazil-produced a number of monographs showing technological trends in particular areas; stateof-the-art reports; or studies showing the evolution of particular technologies highlighting significant patents. These are directed mainly to research centres, universities and SMEs. Canada-continued its efforts to foster intellectual property awareness through its Public Education Program which targets researchers, innovators, academics and SMEs. Information guides and bulletins are made available on the Internet thereby enhancing the general information already included in the Home Page. China-held
more than 20 training courses on
J. F. Sibley
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information retrieval from CD-ROM, and 11 courses on the utilisation of documentation were given to the examiners as well as the public. Two training courses on the European Classification system were run by experts from the EPO.
the “Role of industrial property and technology transfer arrangements in the development of small and medium-sized enterprises”, which was attended by participants from Laos, Butan, China and Vietnam.
Germany-the “Statistics Section” of the Office gets involved in research projects of German research institutes to give guidance on innovative potential and to relate patent data to data for research and development.
Malaysia-the revision of the Patent Act 1983 was passed by Parliament in September 1993 and came into force on 1 August 1995. After the promulgation of the revised law, training courses were held for the staff of the Office. A Road Show was held throughout the country.
In 1995, the EPO co-operated with the Mexican office in the streamlining of the Mexican granting procedure and the production of ESPACEMEXICO. The EPO also collaborated with the Spanish office and WIPO on the modernisation plans for the Brazilian, the Argentine and the Chilean offices. Mongolia-organised
a seminar on the theme of
USPTO-maintains the Technology Assessment and Forecast (TAF) database which allows selected patent bibliographic information to be accessed, retrieved and analysed in a variety of ways. Timeseries information by country, company and technology may be obtained and used to identify trends. A variety of prepared TAF reports are available to the public.
Pergamon
PII:So172-2190(%9
Survey of the Annual Technical Reports 1995 of the Patent Offices on Patent Information Activities J E Sibley Introduction
Matters concerning the generation, reproduction, distribution and use of primary and secondary sources of patent information
The Annual Reports 1995 on Patent Information Activities submitted by Industrial Property and Patent Offices to the WIPO Permanent Committee on Patent and Industrial Property Information (PCIPI) and published by WIPO in the series denoted PCIPU ATRIPYl995IxY (where XY represents the country code of the office providing the respective report), are surveyed in the following article. Each report summarises the activities in 1995 of the relevant office in the patent information and documentation fields and in some cases, indicates its plans for the future. They thus provide a valuable overview of the ongoing activities of the offices and give some indication of the future developments in these activities. The survey concentrates on what appear from the reports to be new developments in 1995 and the progress of developing projects.
In Armenia, publication of the Official Gazette entitled Industrial Property has started. The Gazette contains four sections. These are Legislative and other normative documents; Inventions; Indexes; and Reports. The Gazette includes: Patent Law of the Republic of Armenia. Regulation on filing and examination of requests for discontinuance on the territory of the Republic of Armenia of U.S.S.R. inventors’ certificates for inventions, U.S.S.R. patents issued in the name of the U.S.S.R. State Invention Foundation and on granting of patents of the Republic of Armenia for the remainder of the term.
The survey is based upon reports received by the Editor by the middle of November 1996 and covers the reports of the following offices:
Registration at the Armenian Patent Office for inventions and industrial designs of the U.S.S.R. and former states of U.S.S.R.
Armenia (AM), Austria (AT), Australia (AU), Bulgaria (BG), Brazil (BR), Belarus (BY), Canada (CA), Switzerland (CH), China (CN), Cuba (CU), Czech Republic (CZ), Germany (DE), Denmark (DK), Estonia (EE), Egypt (EG), European Patent Office (EP), Spain (ES), Finland (FI), United Kingdom (GB), Kyrgyzstan (KG), Republic of Korea (KR), Kazakstan(KZ), Croatia (HR), Hungary (HU), Ireland (IE), Japan (JP), Lithuania (LT), Latvia (LV), Maroc (MA), The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (MK), Mongolia (MN), Mexico (MX), Malaysia (MY), The Netherlands (NL), Norway (NO), Peru (PE), Poland (PL), Romania (RO), Sweden (SE), Slovakia (SK), Tunisia (TN), Ukraine (UA), United States of America (US), Vietnam (VN).
Provisional regulations on fees for the protection of industrial property rights. List of Patent Attorneys Armenian Patent Office.
registered
in the
Information on 56 Georgia (including four reregistered).
registered
patents
The legislative and other normative published in Armenian and Russian.
documents
are
Since December 1995, Austrian utility model publications are being issued in addition to the Austrian patent specifications on the AT CD-ROM with a backdating to number 1 of 1994. A survey has been made of the collection of documents in the Library which showed that nearly 1.9 million documents were
In the survey the items are grouped under the headings recommended for the reports by WIPO. 55
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J. F. Sibley
added to the collection in 1995, of which nearly 1.4 million went directly to the Library and over 0.5 million were added to the search files.
The Cuban Office published three issues of the Official Gazette and 93 patent descriptions. These are available on paper or in floppy disk form.
In 1995, the Bulgarian Office continued to publish two series of Official Bulletins, one of which is in English. Bibliographic data and abstracts were given for 872 applications for patents and for 320 granted patents for inventions. Similar data were given for 99 utility model applications and for eight granted patents for utility models. The Office has continued to supply bibliographic data and abstracts from the period 1992/ 1993 for the ESPACE-PRECES CD-ROM products. In 1995, the texts of 455 specifications and 26 numbers of the Official Bulletin were composed by word processing.
The Czech Office published 1092 patent documents and 998 utility mo els. These were included on the CD-ROM ESPA 8 E PRECES, and abstracts and drawings of the patent applications are given in the monthly Official Gazette.
The Brazilian Office published 4067 granted patents. The Belarus Patent Office has included a new subsection in the Official Bulletin to cover PCT applications entering the national phase. The number of PCT applications published in 1995 totalled 85. Beginning in 1995, a new system of numbering applications for titles of protection was introduced; each number consists of six figures, the first two denoting the year of filing and the other four indicating the serial number of the application. Belgospatent began publishing patent specifications to patents of Belarus applications filed directly with the Office; 582 of these specifications were published. Also in 1995, a concept for the automation of the Office complex was developed and approved; this foresaw the creation of nine interconnected subsystems, of which one is a subsystem for automation of the Examination Department for Inventions. Within this framework, it will be possible to carry out examina; tion procedures and communicate with applicants, as well as to record decisions with regard to the registering of industrial property rights. This information is then transmitted to other divisions, such as the Editorial and Publishing Department for publishing of Official Bulletins, and the State Register. The Chinese Patent Office stopped the production of microfiche products in 1995 in order to meet the growing demand for CD-ROMs. 1250 disks were produced; among them, 240 were for the China Patent Database CD-ROM and the remainder were for the Full-text Patent Specifications CD-ROM. The Full-text China Patent Specification database system was formally put into operation in the first half of 1995. The system contains full-text specifications of all applications for patents of invention and for utility models. Six workstations have been set up through the FDDI data transfer network which serves all examination departments in the Office. By the end of 1995, about 50 workstations had been installed in the CPO for data retrieval and administration tasks.
Since January 1995, the German patent documents have been published on the CD-ROM DEPAROM. By order of the GPO, new search software has been developed on the basis of MS-WindowsTM for the DEPAROM series. The Bundesdruckerei GmbH, Berlin, has taken a licence for using this software and is now responsible for production and distribution of DEPAROM. The GPO can offer a licence to other national offices and CD-ROM producers. At present there are five DEPAROM products. DEPAROM-ACT-facsimile CD-ROM containing first publications and patent specifications (A and C documents) of the German Patent Offtce as well as the claims of European patent applications in German translation and international applications in German translation (Il); published weekly; replaces the former ESPACE-DE as of 1 January 1995. DEPAROM-U-facsimile CD-ROM with utility models (Ul) of the German Patent Office; published every three weeks; replaces the former ESPACE-DE-U as of 1 January 1995. DEPAROM-T2-facsimile CD-ROM with the German translation of European patent specifications (T2-T4); published weekly; the CD-ROM also includes the full text in coded form. DEPAROM-CLASS-facsimile CD-ROM containing all patent and utility model publications having protective effect in Germany (DE, EP, WO); divided into 46 sub-editions based on the units of the International Patent Classification; published at irregular intervals depending on the volume of new information, updates at least every five months; there are two variants: Variant A contains all first publications WIPO, EPO and GPO
of
Variant B contains all publications of WIPO, EPO and GPO DEPAROM-KOMPAKT-index CD-ROM containing published unexamined applications (Al), patent specifications (Cl-C4) and utility models (Ul) of the German Patent Office as well
Patent Information Activities
as claims of European patent applications in German translation (Tl), international applications in German translation (Tl) and translation of European patent specifications claiming industrial property rights in Germany (T2-T4); comprises bibliographic data and abstracts (as far as available) in searchable form; published every two months; starting with the 27th publication week 1991. DEPAROM provides a uniform user interface for all DEPAROM series. The regular aperture card production of DE-publications (Al, Cl-C4, Tl, Ul) was stopped. Since 1 January 1996, aperture cards have only been produced at the request of individual customers. The Danish Office started in-house production of the Gazette and found that this resulted in considerable reductions in printing costs. In mid-1995 a contract was signed with a Danish contractor to completely renew the entire IT system. The new system will handle all procedures, including patents, trademarks and utility models in one integrated system. The system will be paperless; all applications, letters, reports, etc., will be scanned. E-mail and the work flow system will be the means of distribution of the applications to examiners. An extensive Business Process Reingineering project has been undertaken resulting inter alia in the formulation of the automated working procedures of the Office. Implementation will start in 1996. The Egyptian Office publishes a patent abstract gazette every three months which is sent to universities and industrial company research institutes. Codes are now added for the bibliographic data. The EPO range of CD-ROM products has expanded to 29 series covering 61 countries. Twelve products have reached the prototype stage: ASEANPAT, CN, CN-ACCESS, DOPALES, IN, MC, MX, RU-ACCESS, TH, MY and BR. Six products are under development: IE, SI, GR, ID and ACCESSEU. In 1995, the new interface and authoring software MIMOSA-a trilateral co-operation product-was released. The first MIMOSA formatted CD-ROM is expected in the third quarter of 1996. This will be the MIMOSA version of ESPACE-FIRST. The present system of only laying the Irish “A” documents open to public inspection with photocopies being made available on request is to change soon to a CD-ROM multiple publication method. The mixedmode disks will be known as ESPACE-IE. These will start in 1995 and a five year back file will be converted in stages. The “B” documents will continue to be published and stored on paper. Work on the produc-
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tion of an internal search file containing the bibliographic data, together with abstract and drawings, similar to the First Page database, continues. During 1995, various programs which generate journal output have been rewritten to provide the data in a form suitable for desktop publishing. The Kyrgyzstan Patent Office issued its Officipl Gazette which included 40 reported inventions; 20 patents and 20 preliminary patents for inventions. The Gazette, which is published quarterly, includes the bibliographic data on the registered patents and preliminary patents. The Gazette is produced using a PC and DTP technology. The inventions are classified using the IPC’. Korea published 40,501 unexamined patent applications, 15,214 examined patent applications, 3701 unexamined utility model applications, and 10,693 examined utility model applications. Optical disks are used for storage of the full-text images. Croatia published 581 patent applications which were spread over the whole range of technology, with CO7C attracting the most; some 81 applications (nearly 14%). So far, no patents have been granted. Copies can be ordered from InfoPat, the library, information and documentation centre of the Office. The Hungarian Patent Office continues to issue the HUNPATEKA CD-ROM. In 1995, the last issue was the 1995/4, which covered the Gazette of Patents and Trademarks of 29 December 1995. HUNPATEKA is issued on the ARCTIS platform developed by ARCANUM Databases, with Hungarian and English user interfaces. The computerised system was developed further and consists of a multi-user, ORACLE-based bibliographic and administrative database. It is worth noting that in 1995, Japan published 337,100 unexamined patent applications, 45,102 unexamined utility model applications, 123,360 examined patent applications and 56,640 examined utility model specifications. A total of 79 CDROMs were published containing the unexamined patent applications, and a further 60 CD-ROMs of examined patent applications; however, with the introduction of the pro-grant opposition system, the latter will stop in March 1996. Paper-based publication of translated international patent and utility model applications stopped in October 1995 with the start of publication of CD-ROMs containing these data. The Register of Patents of the Republic of Lithuania is a database which contains all bibliographic and legal status data which can be used to generate the Official Gazette, the Front Pages, etc., and the ESPACEPRECES CD-ROM. It is expected that the software will be replaced in 1996. The Latvian Office produces paper copies of the B-documents, but lays the applications open to public
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J. F. Sibley
inspection in the Office. Photocopies are provided on demand. The monthly Latvian Patent Bulletin contains bibliographic data on inventions, trademarks and designs. Patent specifications will be published on ESPACE-PRECES CD-ROMs. The Industrial Property Protection Office of the Republic of Macedonia issues an Official Gazette Glusnik quarterly. The gazette contains details of published patents and their abstracts together with other information about other Office activities. It often contains commentaries on actual procedures for obtaining protection of industrial property rights. During 1995, the Mongolian Official Gazette contained data on 117 examined patents for inventions, 1200 trademarks, 13 1 industrial designs and 275 innovations. In the same period, the Ukrainian Patent Office (SPOU) published eight issues of the Official gazette which contained data on 6100 patents for inventions and four utility models. SPOU published 3166 patent specifications as well as 1110 protective documents for patents granted on the basis of re-registration of the U.S.S.R. patents and inventors certificates. Work continued on the electronic publication in the form of a database containing text files and image files. Dissemination of electronic publications was realised by TV broadcasting in the metrewave band or by diskette. In November 1994, the Mexican office signed an agreement with the EPO for the initiation of the series of ESPACE-MX covering the complete documents of applications filed from January 1995. The first masters are planned for the last quarter of 1996. In Peru, The Inventions and New Technology Office periodically publishes the Industrial Property Gazette which constitutes a primary source of patent information with technical documents relating to patents and utility models organised by IPC. Information on unexamined patent applications is published in national circulation newspapers. Granted patents are published in the Gazette. The Polish Patent Office has published an “EnglishPolish glossary of patent information terms”. The Romanian State Office for Inventions and Trademarks (OSIM) started in-house publication using an internal DTP system that includes data downloading posts and DTP posts. As a result of the adoption of the Common Software in OSIM, the BOPITrademarks is being achieved by computer, using the facilities offered by the Common Software. WordPerfect for DOS version 6.0 is being used in the DTP process. During the substantive examination, the abstract and description provided by the applicant are given the form needed to comply with their informative purpose and the document is classified.
Work has continued in the USPTO to obtain significant integration of its examiner office automation with the retrieval system. The smaller PCs on each examiner’s desk are being replaced with highcapacity workstations which have the capability to retrieve and display U.S. patents and world-wide abstracts. Beginning with September 1995 issues, patents were printed for distribution directly from a tape using the Postscript page description language. This resulted in higher quality, reduced costs and virtually 100% availability on issue date. During 1995, the Vietnam Office published 56 granted patent specifications, 24 granted utility models, and 711 registered designs. The Office used PCs for editing, searching and printing patent documents and has published a Vietnamese Catchword Index.
Matters concerning abstracting, classifying, reclassifying and indexing of technical information contained in patent documents IPC version 6 became effective on 1 January 1995 and most of the offices started to classify their patent documents with the new version. Offices do not reclassify documents with IPC symbols from earlier versions of the classification. Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and Malaysia continue to use IPC’. The Canadian Patent Classification continues to be used as the primary classification for all patents issued from an application filed under the previous Patent Act that existed prior to 1 October 1989 as well as for related divisional and reissue applications. There is an ongoing reclassification for all applications files after 1 October 1989 in IPC subclasses C07K and A61K (peptides only). These documents are being reclassified to IPC6 from IPC5. The Swiss Patent Office reclassifies foreign patents which carry non-existent IPC symbols, whilst the Brazilian Patent Office reclassifies old Brazilian documents and those with erroneous symbols. The Chinese Patent Office adds keywords to their patent documents and produces a synonym list to aid searching. They also translate bibliographic data and abstracts of Chinese patents into English. The German Office has checked the classification of newly published documents and abstracts to be included in their search file and, if necessary, added classification symbols relating to the internal subdivisions of the GPO, which are further subdivisions of the IPC. It is obligatory to use hybrid classification on all German patent applications. The indexing codes allotted are contained and searchable in the online database PATDPA. Since 28 July 1995, it has been possible to search for file numbers of supplementary
Patent Information Activities
protection certificates for medical products in the German Patent and Utility Model Register. Additionally, with the introduction of version III of the DPINFO information system on 10 August 1995, it is possible to search in the Industrial Design Register for name of applicants and applicants’ numbers. The development of the DPINFO system is continuing, and one improvement planned is to optimise searching for industrial designs. About 1400 abstracts of Danish patents which have no foreign equivalents have been translated into English and loaded into the EPO database systems. The Egyptian office has changed from using a national classification to the IPC, but uses only the main class symbols; Reclassification of all patents from l-19,000 is being undertaken and these data, together with the patent number and title, are stored on microform. Extra data, such as application details, priority details and inventors, are added for patents from 19,001. In 1995, the development of the DOCTOOL software continued in the EPO and there were about 100 users in The Hague, Berlin and Munich. This number should rise to 800 in 1996. DOCTOOL allows examiners to add value to the search database by adding keywords or codes, modifying or deleting data during consultation or study of published documents, and to store these changes in a central place in order to make them available to everyone making searches in the EPOQUE databases. The U.K. Office has continued to update and amend their Classification Key ready for publication on 1 January 1996 and modified various pamphlets to reflect these changes. The Office has also continued to classify EP and PCT published applications in the UK Headings Bl L, G2J and H2E. With effect from 1 January 1995, the Irish office introduced the hybrid system of indexing codes as a mandatory part of the IPC classification data. The Japanese Office has continued to record back file data of PAJ (which originates from unexamined patent applications published between 1976 and 1993) on CD-ROM. The production of these CD-ROMs will be completed by the end of 1996. Since April 1995, these disks have been provided to overseas patent offices as they are produced. Mongolian and English translations of abstracts to inventions will be published on paper by the Mongolian Patent Office starting in 1996. In 1995, the Swedish Office reclassified nearly 200,000 documents to IPC6 or to the corresponding ECLA classes and over 240,000 US documents to take account of the changes to the U.S. classification
59
system. The non-US documents are reclassified because the Office uses information from the EPO’s CONDA tape for their own reclassification needs. In Tunisia, only applications in Arabic or French are accepted and the documents are not classified according to the IPC. The USPTO reclassified some 689,000 documents in 1995, of which 295,000 were non-US patents. As of 1 October 1996, new foreign documents will not be classified according to the U.S. classification or added to the paper files. Examiners will rely on commercial databases for these records. The Automated Biotechnology Sequence Search (ABSS) system for searching nucleic and amino acid sequences was continuously enhanced to keep abreast of developments in biotechnology. Over 23,700 sequences were searched, an increase of 15% over 1994.
Activities in the field of computerised and other mechanised search systems The Austrian Office has improved the accessibility to EPOQUE and a computer-assisted search and information system (RISP system) for electronic searching of patent documents on CD-ROM has been elaborated and tested. By using a jukebox administration system temporary electronic search files of IPC classified documents are built up by means of temporary storage on magnetic disk. A computer network is used to make the documents available on screen. It is planned to start this new system at the beginning of 1996. Because of the installation of the RISP system, the collection of patent documents on paper form will not be continued from 1996 onwards. The experimental implementation of an automated system for the administration of patents and trademarks started in the Bulgarian Office who also published their first CD-ROM of national trademarks. An agreement between INPI and the Funda@o Andre Tosello permitted access to the Brazilian Patents database online and it was possible to search all bibliographic data and abstracts of documents published since 1992. The Brazilian Oftice used workstations to access US, EP, JP, FR and PCT documents on CD-ROM. A project approved in 1995 by PADCT will permit the production of a CD-ROM series containing the full Brazilian documents from 1980 to 1993. The Belarus Office has developed a complex automated system containing nine subsystems which cover the needs of all departments; the examining divisions for patents and trademarks, the editorialpublishing department, and the State Register. The system is based on Windows 3.11 and uses the FoxPro
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J. F. Sibley
2.6 management system. A database for innovation (BDl) has been started and presently contains data of about 44,000 innovations from all over the world.
of the full text of the applications (contained in fulltext databases) together with facsimile images of the drawing pages (contained in image databases).
The Canadian Office deployed TECHSOURCE LAN early in 1995 and all examiners are connected to the mainframe via the LAN. This permits communication by e-mail amongst themselves and, via a gateway arrangement, to other employees of CIPO. The Inquire/Text (I/T) and Imageplus portion of TECHSOURCE were deployed in 1995 and all examiners and classifiers have received training on the I/T search and retrieval system. Whilst results have been encouraging, further research and fine tuning will be undertaken in 1996. There is an ongoing study to identify and select a bilingual (English/French) thesaurus for full-text searching using I/T. The back file conversion project was nearly completed, with conversion of the last documents expected in 1996. The image quality has exceeded expectations. CIPO established a home page on the Internet in 1995 which describes the services that CIPO provides and how to apply for them. It also provides links to the home pages of other offices.
Also, in 1995, the Finnish Office started to build a local area network to improve the use of information of the examiners. The LAN is expected to be completed in 1996.
Testing of the retrieval system for Chinese patent documentation began in 1995. Five workstations with large, high-resolution screens were installed in the examination department. The system comprises two parts: one is bibliographic data and abstracts which are stored in a relational database on a UNIX server in coded form; the other comprises facsimile images of full-text data including drawings stored on WORM disks in jukeboxes. After a search, examiners can ask for documents listed in a hit list to be downloaded onto-their hard disk for scrutiny or printing. Programming to upgrade the administrative system has been completed and the test phase has begun. Work continues on the German PATIS patent information system. The pilot stage is now complete and the basic phase started on 1 December 1994. In this basic phase, PATIS is transferred into the operational phase. In the basic phase, the PATIS system consists of IKOFAX workstations, data management components, examiners’ PCs, search system, archive system and operating components connected via an effective communication network based on glass fibre. The same software will be used for all workstations which will provide all search functions in the mask and the command mode. The search system is an open system, and so it is possible to access external databases. At present, all project activities are going according to plan. During 1995, the EPOQUE VIEWER came into service at the EPO. It provides display of the full documents including the first page abstracts and images, for one member per family in the examination process. This online, dual mode access uses the ASCII form
The Korean Office is currently testing the patent and utility model documentation system which was completed in 1994. The system is expected to be in use by 1996. A special task force was formed to lay the foundation for implementing electronic filing within KIPO. The task force analysed the current administrative procedures and looked at the methods used in automation projects in advanced offices. In April 1995, an automation master plan was agreed and software was developed to provide clients with a facility to submit applications on diskette. This was completed by the end of 1995. The Croatian Office is developing a computerised information system covering all phases of the granting and registration procedures of industrial property rights and all other office tasks. The Japanese computerised F-term retrieval system for domestic documents was further developed to cover 2200 technical fields of the 2280 total. At the end of 1995, some 40 million documents were available on the Comprehensive Document Database which is used by examiners to access the primary documents of most major countries. The electronic filing system for patent applications continued to develop with online applications running at 66%, floppy disk at 30% and paper at 4%. Both the Lithuanian Office and the Latvian Office rely on CD-ROMs for retrieval databases, but the Latvian Oftice completed its computer network in 1995 with the aid of the EPO and Norwegian Patent Office. The network is based on a UNIX server and there are 24 networked PCs. The computerised system developed by the Malaysian Office is based on stand-alone PCs but, during 1996, a fully integrated system will be established using Common Software from the EPO. The EC-ASEAN programme will provide consultancy advice on this development. During 1995, the Polish Office extended and improved its search systems. Software was developed for automatically reading the abstracts of patents using a scanner; the software for the financial system was modified especially with regard to payments, and automatic processing of statistics was implemented. The network software changed from Novell 4.02 to 4.1 and the number of users was increased. Access
Patent Information Activities from workstations to subject and bibliographic databases was developed. At the end of 1995, 180 PCs were installed in the Office, 160 of them connected to the network. The automation system of the Romanian Office has undergone considerable improvement in regard to both hardware and software. Like so many offices, the Romanian Office is making use of Common Software. The Ukrainian Office updated their bibliographic database and is developing software to aid the input of the claims into the database. The USPTO continued the development of fully automated patent and trademark search systems as reported in previous years. This year, the Classified Search and Image Retrieval has been deployed to two additional examining groups. The workstation software has been enhanced and has migrated to a windowing environment on a different hardware platform. The workstations have been deployed to 100 examiners in a “dual boot” configuration where the workstation boots up in a UNIX mode to provide CSIR functionality, or in a DOS/Windows environment to provide access to office automation software. A network version of COMmunicatel, an examiner-developed communications software package for PCs, is under development. Biotechnology applications continued to intensify in complexity with regard to the amount of nucleic acid and amino acid sequence information involved with inventions. In 1995, the USPTO’s Automated Biotechnology Sequence Search (ABSS) system was upgraded to include an additional MasPar MPII massively parallel machine. Over 23,700 sequences were searched by STIC staff on this system, an increase of 15% over 1994. The Vietnamese Office is developing a LAN system.
Search file establishment and upkeep Because of the introduction of the RISP system in 1996, the Austrian Oflice will stop the upkeep of the paper file collections of the technical examiners and of the library at the end of 1995. The paper file collections of patent documents prior to 1996 will continue to be used and will be updated regularly.
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documentation on compact optical disks and JOPAL CD-ROM together with the necessary hardware. Allocation of the necessary funds is planned for 1996. The question of creating a special searching and information group for serving examiners is being studied. In 1995, the Spanish office started work on the following CD-ROM patent collections; ESPACE-IT, ESPACE-OAPI, ESPACE-PT, Patent Abstracts of Japan, and US-Patent search. In addition, the new edition of 1PC:CLASS containing the 6th edition of the IPC was made available to examiners. Establishment of an in-house electronic search file for the Irish patent documents is in progress and a change in the storage mode from microfilm to CDs for the full texts is in the process of being established. In accordance with the Decree of the Supreme Rada of Ukraine on the implementation of the law “On the Rights Protection for Inventions and Utility Models”, the patent information database needed for its implementation should be established by 1 July 1997. The formation of an examination support search file is planned, preferably stored on machine-readable carriers. The current search file is based on WIPO publications supplied on CD-ROM and the publications of foreign patent offices received by mutual exchange. In 1995, the search file contained nearly 3000 CD-ROMs. The USPTO is using OCR software to convert images of about 172,000 US patents published between August 1970 and 1975 to text for inclusion in its text search database. This should be completed in 1996. The USPTO is initiating a procurement activity to provide technology refreshment of the established APS optical and magnetic storage devices for image data. The procurement will be divided into two parts. The first will acquire current technology which will be incorporated into the current APS architecture. The second part will acquire current and future technology storage to support commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) document management, work flow, and compound and SGML software products.
Administration of the industrial property library and services available to the public
The search file in the Brazilian Office is based on documents in paper form and this has been organised in accordance with the 6th edition of the IPC at the subgroup level. The file contains more than 10 million documents.
In 1995, the collections of the Armenian Office were transferred to a scientific and technical library so that they could be made available to the public. The use of CD-ROM products was restricted to personnel of the Office because there was no suitable reading room. This problem should be solved in 1996.
The Belarus Office carried out a feasibility study of creating a search file based on the PCT minimum
In Brazil, CEDIN-the Technological Documentation and Information Centre-is primarily responsible
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for the management of collections of patent documentation and information. It provides information for both Office staff and the public. Enterprises which sign a contract with INPI receive copies of the front pages of all documents coming into the search files. The Republican Scientific and Technical Library (RSTL) is the only place in Belarus where one can find the complete collection of patents documents. Economic problems have arisen which mean that new methods for supporting the collection must be found. Three reading halls in RSTL are set aside for those working with patent documentation and there is a consultative station for inventors. In 1995, RSTL became independent of Belgospatent. The Patent Search Room (PSR) in the Canadian Office expanded its automated searching systems with the Japanese Patent Abstracts in English on mixed-mode CD-ROM. The first public deployment of CIPO’s electronic patent database, TECHSOURCE, took place in the PSR. The TECHSOURCE workstations which allow full-text searching and document image delivery were initially installed on a trial basis for patent professionals. Remote access to TECHSOURCE from two regional centres was initiated. This will allow patent agents and the public to search the Canadian database. The CD-ROM reading room of the Chinese Patent Office was further expanded with the number of CD-ROM workstations being increased to 10. By the end of 1995, the Non-Patent Literature reading room had collected 17,431 books and 109,138 issues of periodicals including all the periodicals listed in the PCT minimum documentation. The relationship between the German Patent Office and the regional patent information centres has been altered by an agreement dated 8 December 1994. In the future the centres will receive patent documents on CD-ROM (DEPAROM) instead of paper copies or microfilms. With the new CD-ROM product DEPAROM-CLASS replacing the former aperture cards, visitors to the centres are able to search by IPC. During 1995, patents on CD-ROM from Italy, OAPI, Russia, Slovenia and Japan were added to the collections in the Danish Patent Office reading room. The provision of commercial services is becoming one of the main aims of this Office. In Spain, the Technical Library, which is the unit responsible for the consultation and updating of patent documentation and non-patent literature, underwent substantial renovation. This involved a 25% increase in space, the provision of new microform readers and the provision of an enquiry point for EPOQUE. Eight new CD-ROM workstations, obtained with the assistance of the EPO, were installed.
The Estonian Patent Library is situated separately from the Patent Office. It is housed in a 1903 building not meant for library use. Although it provides a service to the general public, its main task is to serve the needs of the examining and professional staff at the Patent Office. This is the only library which collects and processes patent literature in Estonia; there is no network of libraries. The library provides all the normal services. The Israeli Patent Oftice Library provides the public with the complete collection of Israeli patents along with a partial collection of foreign patent abstracts, mainly from the U.S.A., U.K., France, Germany and the EPO. The Korean Patent Office has designated 15 libraries at regional chambers of commerce and industry and industrial complexes as patent deposit libraries with the object of promoting the use of patent documents and public awareness of industrial property information. These libraries provide search and copy services for the public in the region. These local libraries also provide a consultation service for patent applicants. The Patent Oftice in Kazakstan has no patent library but co-operates with the National Patent Fund (the main patent library) which houses the patent collection which is on paper, microfilm and microfiche. The government has developed a programme for the development of scientific and technical information which includes as an integral part an automated patent information system. The library and information activities of the Croatian Patent Office are carried out by the InfoPat Department which maintains the collections and disseminates industrial property information. There are very few other libraries offering literature or information in this area. In Hungary, services are available to the public in the Patent Library and the Industrial Property Professional Library. These two libraries operate as a section of the Hungarian Patent Office. The Patent Library was reconstructed in 1994 and in 1995 had nearly 3500 readers. The Latvian patent library is housed in a separate building from the Patent Office. This library houses the patent collections together with related literature and technical literature. Latvian patent applications are open to public inspection in the reading room of the Patent Office. The Mongolian Scientific and Technical Information Company (STI.Co) is the national centre for scientific and technological information in Mongolia under the Ministry of Science and Education. STI.Co maintains the patent collections and provides information to Office staff and the public. The library is open to the public for patent searching.
Patent Information Activities
The Peruvian office does not have an Industrial Property library, but it does have the Technological Information Search Service, which is available to third parties on request. In January 1995, the USPTO made the Automated Patent System (APS) available to all the Patent and Trademark Depository Libraries (of which there are 80 located in 49 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico) which pay a subscription fee or establish a deposit account for the service. Currently, 30 libraries have entered subscriptions. Public access to the Classified Search and Image Retrieval (CSIR) system continued into its second full year. During 1995, all US patent documents (since 1790) were loaded into the system to allow for retrieval by US classification. A public reading room and industrial property library are maintained within the same building as the National Office of Industrial Property of Vietnam where any user may obtain domestic or foreign patent information. The public may request state-of-the-art searches, patent documents, and patent family information. Selective patent dissemination is also available. Requests can be made personally or by telephone.
Matters concerning mutual exchange of patent documentation and information The move towards the use of CD-ROM for exchange purposes has continued, although some offices can still only supply documents on paper. The trilateral offices completed the primary development of the mixed-mode CD-ROM software called MIMOSA. This software includes an authoring component which accepts ST-32-conformant SGML patent and trademark documents containing both text and image components as input, performs UNIX-based data indexing, and pre-masters CD-ROMs for replication; and a retrieval component which performs Windowsbased searching, retrieval, downloading, and printing of documents from CD-ROMs authored in MIMOSA. The co-operative software development effort of the USPTO, EPO and WIPO for filing electronic patent applications (EASY) ended in October 1995. The focus of the electronic filing project shifted to the identification and development of electronic filing standards. In 1995, the Bulgarian Patent Office sent bibliographic data and abstracts in English for 1299 applications and granted patents on diskettes to EPIDOS in the Hague and Vienna. Similarly, China has offered the bibliographic data and abstracts of patent applications in English in the form of machine-readable tapes to some offices. The Belarus Office began to receive Official Bulletins from 32 countries and from WIPO and EPO and has
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sent its Official Bulletins to 39 countries, WIPO and EPO. The bulletins are usually received on paper. The Japanese Oftice has provided the EPO and USPTO with the data of 4122 DNA and amino acid sequences. These data relate to sequences disclosed in the applications published from April 1990 through March 1994. The JPO started to analyse the sequences disclosed in applications published by March 1995 and have sent data on a further 1728 sequences. The JPO also translated into English F-term manuals from 100 technical fields and provided them to the EPO and USPTO, together with the corresponding F-term inventories. Romania has sent an official request to WIPO concerning participation in the SARINDI programme, with a view to the generation of a CD-ROM with the industrial designs registered in Romania. The USPTO is developing a prototype for the electronic filing of patent applications based on commercial off-the-shelf software packages. This is scheduled for implementation on 1 August 1996.
Other relevant matters concerning education and training in, and promotion of, the use of patent information, including technical assistance to developing countries Many offices report assistance to developing countries in various ways, either under schemes operated by WIPO, including performing searches and/or examinations, or under bilateral agreements. Technical assistance and training has been offered to many developing countries by experts from many offices. Most offices report the holding of training courses or seminars for their nationals or officials from developing countries and elaborate on their efforts to disseminate patent information. Examples of this are: Brazil-produced a number of monographs showing technological trends in particular areas; stateof-the-art reports; or studies showing the evolution of particular technologies highlighting significant patents. These are directed mainly to research centres, universities and SMEs. Canada-continued its efforts to foster intellectual property awareness through its Public Education Program which targets researchers, innovators, academics and SMEs. Information guides and bulletins are made available on the Internet thereby enhancing the general information already included in the Home Page. China-held
more than 20 training courses on
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information retrieval from CD-ROM, and 11 courses on the utilisation of documentation were given to the examiners as well as the public. Two training courses on the European Classification system were run by experts from the EPO.
the “Role of industrial property and technology transfer arrangements in the development of small and medium-sized enterprises”, which was attended by participants from Laos, Butan, China and Vietnam.
Germany-the “Statistics Section” of the Office gets involved in research projects of German research institutes to give guidance on innovative potential and to relate patent data to data for research and development.
Malaysia-the revision of the Patent Act 1983 was passed by Parliament in September 1993 and came into force on 1 August 1995. After the promulgation of the revised law, training courses were held for the staff of the Office. A Road Show was held throughout the country.
In 1995, the EPO co-operated with the Mexican office in the streamlining of the Mexican granting procedure and the production of ESPACEMEXICO. The EPO also collaborated with the Spanish office and WIPO on the modernisation plans for the Brazilian, the Argentine and the Chilean offices. Mongolia-organised
a seminar on the theme of
USPTO-maintains the Technology Assessment and Forecast (TAF) database which allows selected patent bibliographic information to be accessed, retrieved and analysed in a variety of ways. Timeseries information by country, company and technology may be obtained and used to identify trends. A variety of prepared TAF reports are available to the public.