Engr. Maria Concepcion S.

Zabala
IP Rights Specialist II
IP Search and Documentation Division
Patent information
is available from
both free and fee-
based sources.
FREE SOURCES OF PATENT
INFORMATION
Newspapers, journals
Radio, television
Internet, Information databases
Company Publications
Official publications by government
authorities such as reports, statistics,
etc.
FREE SOURCES OF PATENT
INFORMATION
Patent
Documents
PATENT DATABASES
Free Databases
Commercial Databases
FINDING SPECIFIC PATENT
INFORMATION
Patent document reference numbers
and dates
Applicants or inventors names
Keywords
Patent classification
Patent document reference
numbers and dates
Application number
Publication number
Priority number if filed initially in another
country
Date of Filing
Date of Publication
Priority dates
Novartis, BMW, Sony, Mittal, etc.
Dyson, Smith, etc.
Applicants or inventors name
Note:
Be careful since same applicant may use different
versions of their name, e.g. International Business
Machines, IBM, IBM Ltd., etc.
Keywords
These are words or phrases which describe
essential technical features of the invention
Keywords can be searched in the title,
abstract, description or claims
Remember:
Search for synonyms e.g. using specialized dictionaries
Search for word variations e.g. US plow vs. GB plough
Languages: Only EN documents retrieved with EN
keywords
Truncation/ word-stemming
uses wildcard characters such as * or ? to
substitute for any other character or characters
when added next to a string of search terms.
Examples:
attach* - attach, attached, attaching, attachment,
attachable
*attach - reattach (re-attach)
*attach* - reattaching (re-attaching), reattached (re-attached)
speciali?ation specialisation, specialization
commerciali?ation commercialisation, commercialization
How to Limit or Widen Keyword
Search?
Phrase searching using
Examples:
electrical conductor, laser beam, etc.
Boolean Operators
used to join words or concepts with defined TRUE or FALSE
operators such AND, OR, NOT, XOR, NEAR
How to Limit or Widen Keyword
Search?
Boolean Logic Overview
All things that
are Cars
All things that
are Airplanes
All things that are both Cars and Airplanes
Search : Car OR Airplane
Result : Will return anything that is a car or an airplane
OR searches are inclusive and return many results!
Boolean Logic OR
Search : Car AND Airplane
Result : Will only return things that are both cars and airplanes.
AND searches are exclusive and will narrow your results!
Things that are both Cars and Airplanes
Boolean Logic AND
Search : Car NOT Airplane
Result : Will return cars, but not cars which are airplanes
NOT searches are exclusive and will narrow your results!
Boolean Logic NOT
NEAR Operator
Documents having both the words car and
airplane within a certain number of words of each
other
Useful when searching variations on phrases
containing two terms, e.g. airplane with engine of
car, car with parts of an airplane,, etc.
Check default value of distance
How to Limit or Widen Keyword
Search?
Parentheses (nesting) to clarify/order search
queries
wheel AND (steel OR alloy)
not wheel AND steel OR alloy
Note:
Using parenthesis is a way of forcing the order of
processing of logical expressions
Has great impact on the search results
How to Limit or Widen Keyword
Search?
SUMMARY
PATENTSCOPE ESPACENET USPTO IPDL PHIL PAT
SEARCH
Boolean
Operators
AND, OR,
NOT, ANDNOT
AND, OR, NOT OR, AND,
ANDNOT
AND, OR AND, OR
Wildcard ?, * ?, #, * $ (space),
(tab), #, $,
*, ., , - , /,
?, etc.
*, ?
Phrase
Searching
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Proximity
Operator
NEAR, ~ prox/distance<3,
prox/unit=sentence,
prox/unit=paragraph
Nesting
Expression
(Parentheses)
Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Selecting the Right Search tools
Patent Collections (Which Countries or
Regions?)
Document Types (Patent Applications?
Granted Patents? Utility Models? Industrial
Designs? More?)
Document Elements (Bibliographic Data?
Descriptions? Claims?)
Data Coverage
Languages (Multiple language versions?
Translations?)
FREE PATENT DATABASES
WIPO PatenScope
EPO Espacenet
USPTO Patent Database
JPO IPDL
IPOPHL PhilPat Search
Name PATENTSCOPE
Patent Collection 10,116,437 patent documents
Document Types patents
Document Elements Bibliographic Data, Description, Claim, National Phase Information, Machine Translations,
Patent Application Related Documents, Full-text Documents
Data Coverage 1978 present (PCT)
Language Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish,
Vietnamese
http://www.wipo.int/wipogold/en/
SIMPLE SEARCH:
Select the field of interest;
Enter keywords;
Select the collections you are interested in;
Hit the SEARCH button
ADVANCED SEARCH:
Enter keywords/Boolean expression/field
codes etc.;
Select the language in which you would like
to perform the search;
Select the collection/s you are interested
in; and
Hit the SEARCH button.
FIELD COMBINATION:
Select the field/s of interest using the
arrow of the drop-down menu;
Use the AND/OR boxes to add or include
fields;
If you would like to add more fields or
remove one or more fields, please click on:
FIELD COMBINATION:
Select the language in which you would
like to perform the search;
Select the collection/s you are interested
in; and
Hit the SEARCH button.
CLIR
- Automatic Mode
Enter the search query in the search box.
Select the language of your query.
Select the Expansion mode:
AUTOMATIC will generate the results immediately
without any further user input.
Decide on the balance between PRECISION and
RECALL for your query.
Click on SUBMIT QUERY
CLIR
- Supervised Mode
Enter the search query in the search box.
Select the language of your query.
Select the Expansion mode:
SUPERVISED will allow you to select the technical
domain associated with your query and the
variants relevant to your query.
Decide on the balance between PRECISION and
RECALL for your query.
Click on NEXT
CLIR
- Supervised Mode
Select the technical domains.
Click on Expand Synonyms.
Select the variants relevant to your query or ADD
VARIANT if you know a variant that is not in the
proposed list.
Click on TRANSLATE SELECTED TERMS or START
OVER if necessary
Define the fields in which the search should be
performed
CLIR
- Supervised Mode
Untick the STEMMING option if you would like to
have results including only the exact term of your
search.
Click on SUBMIT QUERY
http://worldwide.espacenet.com
Name ESPACENET
Patent Collection More than 70 million patent documents worldwide
Document Types patents
Document Elements Bibliographic Data, Description, Claims, Mosaics/ Drawings, Original Document, Machine
Translations, Cited and Citing Documents, INPADOC legal status, and INPADOC patent family
Data Coverage 1836 - present
Language English, French, German
SMART SEARCH
All you have to do is to enter a word or words
describing the type of invention youre looking for
and click on SEARCH.
Alternatively, you can type in the number of a patent
document, the name of an inventor or company or
the date or year of a patent document.
SMART SEARCH
QUICK SEARCH
Allows you to carry out a simple search using a
keyword, an inventor or a company name.
ADVANCED SEARCH
Advanced search can be used if you want to combine
various search terms. For example, you can search
for patent documents from a particular year and
country that have specific words in their title or
abstract.
NUMBER SEARCH
A quick way to get a patent document when you
know the publication, application or priority number.
You do not need to know the exact format of the
number fuzzy logic takes care of that.
CLASSIFICATION SEARCH
the option to use if you are interested in finding all
the patent publications in a particular technical area
a powerful tool used by professional patent
searchers, it can take a bit of time to get used to, but
it is usually worth the effort.
http:// patft.uspto.gov/
Name USPTO
Patent Collection US
Document Types Patents, utility models, industrial designs, plant varieties
Document Elements Full Documents (HTML and PDF)
Data Coverage 1790- present
Language English
USPTO
USPTO
USPTO
QUICK SEARCH
Select a year or range of years to search from the Select
years to search drop-down menu.
Enter a term in the text entry box labeled Term 1.
Select which field to apply to Term 1 by using the Field
1 drop-down menu located to the right of the Term 1 box.
Select a Quick Operator (AND, OR, or ANDNOT) from the
menu located between the two Term boxes.
Enter a term in the text entry box labeled Term 2.
Select which field to apply to Term 2 by using the Field
2 drop-down menu located to the right of the Term 2 box.
Hit the SEARCH button.
ADVANCED SEARCH
Select a year or range of years to search from
the Select years to search drop-down menu.
Type your search statement into the Text Entry box
marked Query.
Hit the SEARCH button.
PATENT NUMBER SEARCH
Type the patent number or numbers into the box. If
you include more than one number, they should be
separated by a space. It is not necessary to include
commas or to capitalize the prefix.
Hit the SEARCH button.
http:// www.ipdl.inpit.go.jp/homepg_e.ipdl
Name IPDL
Patent Collection Japan
Document Types Patents
Document Elements Patent abstracts , Bibliographic data, original documents
Data Coverage 1976- present
Language English
IPDL
IPDL
TEXT SEARCH
You can look for any word that is included in the Applicant,
Title of invention, and Abstract part of the PAJ.
You can enter multiple keywords separated by a SPACE in one
box like "computer semiconductor". Select AND/OR operation
from the drop-down list on the right.
The maximum number of characters that can be entered is
200.
In the publication date, you can search for exact date, date
range, after or before a date.
You can also enter IPC symbol.
Click "Search" to perform the search after entering your
query.
NUMBER SEARCH
If you want to find a particular document from application/
publication/ patent number or Appeal/trial number, please
select an applicable number type and then enter the number
in the box.
Click "Search" to perform the search after entering your
query.
Note:
You can enter several numbers by separating them with
spaces.
http:// patents.ipophil.gov.ph/patsearch2/
Name IPDL
Patent Collection Philippines
Document Types Published Pending Patent Applications, Granted Patents, Utility Models, Industrial Designs
Document Elements Bibliographic data, Original documents (PDF)
Data Coverage 1948- present
Language English
FIELD COMBINATION SEARCH
Select the field/s of interest using the drop-
down menu;
Use the AND/OR boxes to add or include
fields;
Click "Search" to perform the search after
entering your query.
OTHER FREE (PATENT) DATABASES
KEY POINTS
At present no database has complete coverage of all
patent documents ever published worldwide
Make full use of the Web. Sometimes it is worth
searching the internet as well as patent databases.
Patents or inventors often feature on the internet, giving
additional input for follow-up searches in patent
databases.
Specific patent searches are sometimes best conducted
using both the information available on the Web and in
patent databases.
Intellectual Property Center
#28 Upper McKinley Road
McKinley Hill Town Center
Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City
1634 Philippines
www.ipophil.gov.ph
238-6300