The aim of this article is to introduce interested users to some practical aspects of patent searching. You may have heard something about patents or have come across a patent record from a CD-ROM or as one of the references in an article.
Let me start by quoting from the European Patent Office Home Page (http://www.european-patent-office.org)
“A patent is a legal title granting its holder the exclusive right to make use of an invention for a limited area and time by stopping others from, amongst other things, making, using or selling it without authorisation.According to recent studies undertaken by the EPO and the OECD:
- US$ 20,000 million are wasted every year in Europe on reinventing and re-developing existing ideas because of lack of information.
- Only 59,000 companies in Europe have made use of the patent system in the last five years, thus leaving another 111,000 companies that should have used the patent system, but have not.
- 80% of technical information is published in patent documentation -- and often nowhere else.”
There are different kinds of patents, such as utility patents, design patents, plant patents, etc.
A patent document typically consists of:
You may have come across references to a patent document but are confused as to what it means. Let's assume you have this patent citation:
Kirsch, Steven T. Infoseek Corporation. Document retrieval over networks wherein ranking and relevance scores are computed at the client for multiple database documents. U.S. Patent 5,659732, 1997, August 19.
A typical citation would give you information like the inventor's name, title of the invention, patent number (including the country) and the date of grant or application. These are essential information to trace the patent document.
The Library subscribes to the full text (including drawings) of US Patents on CD-ROM entitled PatentView. This is how it appears in PatentView.
| Patent Number : | 5659732 |
| Issue Date : | 08/19/97 |
| Inventor(s) : | Kirsch, Steven T., Los Altos, CA |
| Assignee(s) : | InfoSeek Corporation |
| Abstract : | A document search method using a plurality of databases available from one or more servers using one or more search engines. For each database, the number of records is determined and reported, as well as frequency of search query term occurances or hits, together with identification of database records corresponding to the records... |
| Title of invention : | Document retrieval over networks wherein ranking and relevance scores are computed at the client for multiple database documents |
| File Date : | 05/17/95 |
| IPC Edition : | G06F 17/30 |
| U.S. Class : | 395-605 |
| U.S. Class Ref : | 395-610, 395-609 |
| U.S. References : | 4805134 Calo et al. 395-610
5107419 MacPhail 395-609 5333312 Wang 395-610 5544352 Egger 395-605 |
| Foreign Refs: | 0304191-A2 02/89 EPX $$$ |
| Other References : | Computer Record Access No. 01929334 of Seybold Report on Desktop Publishing, v10,n8, p. 17(6), Apr. 22, 1996, Searching far and wide : the powerful document retrieval software of PLS, Banet B....O'Leary, Mike Dialog Targets New Age Searching, Information Today, v10, n11, pp 49-50 Dec. 1993.... |
Note that Patent Number is continuous for US patent numbers, Issue Date is the date the patent was granted and File Date is the date of the application of the patent. Other information like abstracts, references are given.
Using Patentview, you can print a fascimile copy of the patent document.
Let's look at a patent citation from Chemical Abstracts.
| TITLE: | Sensors arrays for detecting analytes in fluids. |
| AUTHORS: | Lewis, Nathan S.; Freund, Michael S. (Calif Inst of Techy, USA). |
| PATENT INFO: | PCT Int. App. WO 96307501 A1 3 October 1996, 45 pp. |
| DESIGNATED STATES : | W:AM, AT, AU, AZ, BB, BG, BR, BY, CA, CH, CN, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, GB, GE, HU, IS, JP, KE, KG, SD, SE, SG, SI: RW : AT, BE, BF, BJ, CF, CG, CH, CI, CM, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GA, DB, GR, IE, IT, LU, MC, ML, NL, PT, SE. (World Intellectual Property Organization.) |
| CODEN: | PIXXD2. CLASS : ICM : G01n027-12. ICS : G01N033-00. |
| APPLICATION: | WO 96-US4105 26 Mar 1996. |
| PRIORITY: | US 95-410809 27March 1995. |
| DOCUMENT TYPE: | Patent CA |
| SECTION: | 80 (Organic Analytical Chem) Section cross-reference : 38 |
| ABSTRACT: | Chem. sensors for detecting analytes in fluids comprise 1st and 2nd condcutive elements (e.g.g. elec. leads) elec. coupled to and sepd. by a chem. sensitive resistor which provides an non-conductive regions (comprising a non-conductive org. polymer) and conductive regions ... |
This looks complicated but don't be overwhelmed. This patent was first filed in the U.S. (Priority: US-410809 27 March 1995 gives an indication of where and when the patent was first filed). Subsequently, the inventors filed for an International Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) application. PCT patents are published by World Intellectual Property Organization, and has WO in front of the patent number, e.g. WO 96307501. The first two digit refers to the year, i.e. 96. Subsequent numbers refers to the patent number. Each year, the patent number starts from 000001. Please note that patents applied under PCT have no grant date only date of publication of the application.
Designated States refers to the countries in which the inventors wish to file the patent applications. Instead of going to the individual countries to file separately, which is time-consuming and expensive, the inventors chose to go through the PCT route where you only need to file once. But whether the patent is granted or whether the inventors proceeds with the patent process in each of these countries is another story.
You cannot obtain the actual patent document from Chemical Abstracts. But with important information like the patent number (WO 96307501) and publication date (3 October 1996), you can proceed to print the fascimile copy of this patent from Espace World CD-ROM.
These are specialised CD-ROMs for patents. Other CD-ROMs also contain patent information. They provide mainly bibliographic patent information and not full text. They give the inventor's name, patent number, etc.
These are some of the commercial databases available for searching patent information. NUS teaching and research staff, higher degree students (and corporate members with deposit account) may request for the Library Online Information Search (LOIS) service by filling a LOIS request form.
For those patents which are not available in NUS Library, NUS teaching and research staff and higher degree students (with approval from their supervisors) may request the Library to obtain a reprint of the patent document. A note of caution; patents may not be in English, e.g. they may be in Japanese, French or German.
Patent offices also maintain Websites, such as:
For more information, check out the NUS Library home page (http://www.lib.nus.edu.sg/) which has a section on Finding Info on Internet and click on the link to Patents.
There is so much to learn about patents and patent searching, this is just a glimpse of what's out there. Happy Searching!
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