The Lens (formerly Patent Lens) is a free, searcheable online database of patents and scholarly literature, provided by

Cambia Cambia is an Australian-based global non-profit social enterprise focusing on open science, biology, innovation system reform and intellectual property. Its projects include The Lens, formerly known as Patent Lens, and the Biological Innovat ...

, a non-profit organization based in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. The Lens functions as an aggregation platform, drawing bibliometric data from various sources such as Crossref,

PubMed PubMed is an openly accessible, free database which includes primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institute ...

Microsoft Academic Microsoft Academic was a free internet-based academic search engine for academic publications and literature, developed by Microsoft Research in 2016 as a successor of Microsoft Academic Search. Microsoft Academic was shut down in 2022. Both ...

, and OpenAlex, and integrating them using advanced analytics to provide enriched, contextual information.

History

The service was initially launched in 2000 as a database of U.S. patents focused on agricultural technologies. Between 2004 and 2007, under the leadership of Dr. Marie Connett and Dr.

Richard Jefferson Richard Allen Jefferson Jr. (born June 21, 1980) is an American former professional basketball player who played small forward. He played for eight teams in his 17-season career in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Jefferson playe ...

, the platform expanded to include patents across all scientific disciplines, engineering fields, and other areas of innovation. This expansion also introduced access to patent applications and granted patents from multiple jurisdictions through a website then known as the Patent Lens. During this period, new tools were developed to enable searching of biological sequences within patent literature, alongside the introduction of dynamically updating patent landscapes tailored to specific fields. These enhancements supported the broader goal of democratizing access to intellectual property data. Over time, the database has enabled free and open access to patent literature and facilitated the production of scholarly materials such as conference papers, reports, and books. The platform’s analytical tools have been continuously refined to uncover trends in patent ownership, citation patterns, and technology landscapes. In 2013, the platform was rebranded as ''The Lens''. It has received funding support from several organizations over the years, including the

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The foundation was created by Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller (" ...

(2000–2004), a donation via the International Rice Research Institute (2005–2006), the

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation The Gates Foundation is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was launched in 2000 and is reported to be the third largest charitable foundation in the world, holding $ ...

(2011), the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (2012), the

Wellcome Trust The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of Burroughs Wellcome, one of the predec ...

(2018), and the Lemelson Foundation. Today, The Lens hosts over 225 million scholarly works, more than 127 million global patent records, and upwards of 370 million biological sequences.

Features

The Patent Lens Sequence Project, launched in June 2006, is the only publicly accessible resource that allows users to explore more than 80 million

DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...

and

protein sequences Protein primary structure is the linear sequence of amino acids in a peptide or protein. By convention, the primary structure of a protein is reported starting from the amino-terminal (N) end to the carboxyl-terminal (C) end. Protein biosynthes ...

disclosed in patents. Patent tutorials are available on the site covering

patent claims In a patent or patent application, the claims define in technical terms the extent, i.e. the scope, of the protection conferred by a patent, or the protection sought in a patent application. The claims particularly point out the subject matter whi ...

, freedom to operate, patent inventorship, and

continuing patent application Under United States patent law, a continuing patent application is a patent application that follows, and claims priority to, an earlier-filed patent application. A continuing patent application may be one of three types: a continuation, division ...

Plant breeders' rights Plant breeders' rights (PBR), also known as plant variety rights (PVR), are rights granted in certain places to the breeder of a new variety of plant that give the breeder exclusive control over the propagating material (including seed, cuttin ...

(PBR), also known as plant variety rights (PVR), are also addressed. This has the intention to "forge a learning resource that participants in innovation systems at all levels... can use to learn of critical and timely issues relevant to improving the public good... by engaging with the patent system". The patent search interface is available in Chinese, English and French, with the full text of

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) patents being searchable in English, French and German. PCT applications are searchable in Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Spanish. Only a limited number of studies looked into the comparison of the number of publications indexed in the academic research databases. A 2025 study from a medical university in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

limited to scleral contact lenses concluded, that

Scopus Scopus is a scientific abstract and citation database, launched by the academic publisher Elsevier as a competitor to older Web of Science in 2004. The ensuing competition between the two databases has been characterized as "intense" and is c ...

had 3.6% more references than

Web of Science The Web of Science (WoS; previously known as Web of Knowledge) is a paid-access platform that provides (typically via the internet) access to multiple databases that provide reference and citation data from academic journals, conference proceedi ...

. In a 2024 publication from the University of Jordan the publications from their university referenced in several databases were compared. The authors found, that the degree of coverage decreases in the order:

> The Lens. A 2024 study from Spain concluded that zero-cost The Lens, which combined the data from Crossref, PubMed, Core and OpenAlex, had the largest coverage, with more than 247 million bibliographic records. No-cost Open Alex had the second largest coverage of about 240 million publications in total. Free SciLit came in third with 149 million of publications agglomerated from Crossref, PubMed, preprint repositories and publishers.

Core Collection came in fourth with 85 mln. records.

was the fifth with 78 million records. While no database was comprehensive, the coverage overlap between any two databases was substantial.

Response

Francis Gurry, director general of 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 ...

(WIPO) in March 2009, stated that the landscaping activities of the Patent Lens: in "view of the shared objective of making patent information systems more comprehensive and accessible, and turning raw patent data into useful information resources so as to strengthen the empirical basis of international policy processes". Nature Biotechnology called the Patent Lens "a giant leap in the right direction" for providing researchers,

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 ...

offices and company executives a facile means of establishing the novelty of their offerings and the nature of their competitors' inventions.

References

External links

*{{official website
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Interview with Richard Anthony Jefferson, Founder and CEO, Cambia
Patent search services Aggregation-based digital libraries Digital libraries Scholarly search services

History

Features

Response

See also

References

External links