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PATENTSCOPE is a global patent
database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...
and search system developed and maintained by the
World Intellectual Property Organization The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO; (OMPI)) is one of the 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN). Pursuant to the 1967 Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO was created to pr ...
. It provides free and open access to a vast collection of international
patent 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 sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...
documents, including
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 claim (patent), claims stated in a formal document, including necessary officia ...
s, granted patents, and related technical information.


History

In 2001, WIPO launched PATENTSCOPE as an online service to provide free access to international patent documents. The database initially focused on the
Patent Cooperation Treaty The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is an international patent law treaty, concluded in 1970. It provides a unified procedure for filing patent applications to protect inventions in each of its contracting states. A patent application filed und ...
(PCT) applications, which are international patent applications filed under the PCT system. In 2008, it was transformed into a search system for not only published PCT applications, but also national and regional patent collections. In 2009 it counted with 9 data collections. In 2013, with the addition of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and China’s national patent collections the database past the 30 million record mark. In 2014,
Espacenet Espacenet (formerly stylized as ''esp@cenet'') is a free online service for searching patents and patent applications. Espacenet was developed by the European Patent Office (EPO) together with the member states of the European Patent Organisation. ...
, Patentscope and Depatisnet were the main multinational patent databases offered by patent authorities which are available to the public free of charge. Chemical search was made available in 2016, allowing non-chemists to also search for chemical information. Over the years, the scope of PATENTSCOPE expanded to include additional patent collections from various countries and regions, making it a global resource for patent information.
In 2018, WIPO implemented an AI tool for translating patent documents held in PATENTSCOPE. In 2020, during COVID-19 pandemic, WIPO launched a new search functionality to facilitate the location and retrieval of information useful to develop new technologies that could fight against the pandemic. As of June 2023, the database included 111 million patents documents, including 4.6 millions published international patent applications.


Features and functionalities

PATENTSCOPE offers a range of features and functionalities to assist users in searching and retrieving patent-related information. Some of the key features of the database include: ; Comprehensive coverage PATENTSCOPE provides access to millions of patent documents from around the world. It is the official publication reference site for published PCT applications. It includes
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 claim (patent), claims stated in a formal document, including necessary officia ...
s, granted patents, and related technical information from national and international
patent office A patent office is a governmental or intergovernmental organization which controls the issue of patents. In other words, "patent offices are government bodies that may grant a patent or reject the patent application based on whether the applicati ...
s. The database covers a broad range of technology fields, allowing users to search for patents in their specific areas of interest. ; Multilingual search interface One of the notable features of the database is its multilingual search interface. Users can perform searches using keywords, patent numbers, inventors' names, and other relevant criteria in multiple languages. The database supports a range of languages, including English, French, German, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese. ; Advanced search options PATENTSCOPE offers advanced search options to help users refine their queries and retrieve precise results. Users can apply various search filters, such as publication date, patent classification, applicant's name, and legal status, to narrow down their searches. The system also supports boolean operators and wildcard characters, enabling complex and customized search queries. ; Patent family information PATENTSCOPE provides access to patent family information, which helps users track related patent documents across different jurisdictions. Users can view the entire
patent family A patent family is a set of patents or patent applications in various countries in relation to a single invention, for example when a first patent application, application in a country – the priority priority application – is extende ...
tree for a specific
invention An invention is a unique or novelty (patent), novel machine, device, Method_(patent), method, composition, idea, or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It m ...
, including its priority
applications Application may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks ** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a ...
, divisional applications, and related granted patents. This feature is particularly useful for evaluating the global coverage and legal status of a patent. ; Full-text document access The database allows users to access the full-text content of patent documents directly from the search results. Users can view the complete patent description, claims, drawings, and other relevant information in PDF format. Additionally, the database supports
machine translation Machine translation is use of computational techniques to translate text or speech from one language to another, including the contextual, idiomatic and pragmatic nuances of both languages. Early approaches were mostly rule-based or statisti ...
, enabling users to automatically translate patent documents into their preferred language. ; Translation PATENTSCOPE integrates WIPO Translate which is a
neural network A neural network is a group of interconnected units called neurons that send signals to one another. Neurons can be either biological cells or signal pathways. While individual neurons are simple, many of them together in a network can perfor ...
translation tool developed by the
World Intellectual Property Organization The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO; (OMPI)) is one of the 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN). Pursuant to the 1967 Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO was created to pr ...
and trained exclusively on patent documents. The translation is available as a stand-alone tool to translate patent documents and is also available directly in the result list and in the patent document to translate the different parts such as the bibliographic data, the description, the claims and full-text. This tool has been shared with several UN organizations. The Cross-Lingual Information Retrieval interface is also available in the database, and allows users to not only translate their search terms but also find
synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...
s of those. ; Chemical searches PATENTSCOPE offers different search options for
chemical compound A chemical compound is a chemical substance composed of many identical molecules (or molecular entities) containing atoms from more than one chemical element held together by chemical bonds. A molecule consisting of atoms of only one element ...
s such as exact structure search, substructure search and Markush search. Users can draw formulas, use commercial and common names, as well as number references to perform their searches.


See also

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Intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...
*
Patent classification A patent classification is a system for patent examiner, examiners of patent offices or other people to categorize (code) documents, such as published patent applications, according to the technical features of their content. Patent classifications ...
*
Technology transfer Technology transfer (TT), also called transfer of technology (TOT), is the process of transferring (disseminating) technology from the person or organization that owns or holds it to another person or organization, in an attempt to transform invent ...
*
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 f ...
*
Patent infringement 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 ...
*
WIPO Lex WIPO Lex is an online global database launched in 2010, which provides free public access to intellectual property laws, treaties and judicial decisions from around the world. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) maintains and devel ...
*
Global Brand Database The Global Brand Database is a free-of-charge comprehensive online database developed and maintained by the World Intellectual Property Organization. It is a global resource for trademark information, providing users access to a vast collection of ...
*
Global Design Database The Global Design Database is a comprehensive online database developed and maintained by the World Intellectual Property Organization. It serves as a global resource for industrial designs, providing users access to a vast collection of internati ...


References


External links

* {{Official website, https://patentscope.wipo.int/ Online law databases World Intellectual Property Organization