patent law A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

, a search report is a report established by a patent office, which mentions documents which may be taken into consideration in deciding whether the invention to which a

patent application A patent application is a request pending at a patent office for the grant of a patent for an invention described in the patent specification and a set of one or more claims stated in a formal document, including necessary official forms and re ...

relates is

patentable Within the context of a national or multilateral body of law, an invention is patentable if it meets the relevant legal conditions to be granted a patent. By extension, patentability also refers to the substantive conditions that must be met for ...

.See for instance The documents mentioned in the search report usually form part of the

prior art Prior art (also known as state of the art or background art) is a concept in patent law used to determine the patentability of an invention, in particular whether an invention meets the novelty and the inventive step or non-obviousness criteria ...

Patent law

Categories of documents

Letters are often included in search reports established for patent applications to indicate the relevance of the documents identified by the

examiner Examiner or The Examiner may refer to: Occupations * Bank examiner, a kind of auditor * Examiner (Roman Catholicism), a type of office in the Roman Catholic Church * Examinership, a concept in Irish law * Medical examiner * Patent examiner * Tr ...

. For instance, the

European Patent Office The European Patent Office (EPO) is one of the two organs of the European Patent Organisation (EPOrg), the other being the Administrative Council. The EPO acts as executive body for the organisation

(EPO) uses the following letters in search reports or in the

European Patent Register The European Patent Register, also known as the Register of European Patents, is a public register kept by the European Patent Office (EPO). It contains legal information relating to published European patent applications and European patents gran ...

:Search reports: when is an X document not an X document?

Patent Information News ''Patent Information News'' is a trilingual, quarterly magazine published by the Principal Directorate Patent Information of the European Patent Office (EPO), Vienna sub-office, Austria. History and profile ''Patent Information News'' was laun ...

issue 4/2011, December 2011, p. 4.: "Categories of documents (X, Y, P, A, D, etc.)" Combinations of different categories are possible. For instance, a document classified as "D, A", i.e. in categories "D" and "A", would be a document cited in the application and regarded as representing the technological background of the invention.

References

External links

* : "Search report"
Patent Factsheet: Search Report
at the

UK Intellectual Property Office The Intellectual Property Office of the United Kingdom (often referred to as the UK IPO) is, since 2 April 2007, the operating name of The Patent Office. It is the official government body responsible for intellectual property rights in the UK ...

(UKIPO)
1844.01 Preparing the International Search Report (Form PCT/ISA/210) R-6 - 1800 Patent Cooperation Treaty
at the

United States Patent and Trademark Office The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alex ...

(USPTO) (with example of international search report) {{Law-stub Copyright law Patent law

Patent law

Categories of documents

See also

References

External links