Full Text Searching for Indian Patents and Application on MCPaIRS

India is a growing player in the international patent market, and the expanding partial and full-text coverage of Indian patent documents in major patent search systems reflects this increased importance. A quick look at the Intellogist Patent Coverage Map lists full-text coverage of Indian patent documents on major systems like PatBase, Orbit.com, and TotalPatent.  We’ve also discussed smaller search systems that exclusively cover Indian patent documents (with full-text, partial text, and bibliographic coverage), such as CIPIS, iPairs, India BigPatents, and First Indian Patent Searchable Database Ekaswa. A new search system known as MCPaIRS is now available online that offers users full-text access to Indian patent applications and granted patents, as well as legal status information. This search system is the first example that I’ve seen of a commercial database with a very user-friendly interface that exclusively covers full-text Indian patent documents.

Read on to learn more about the search and viewing features and subscription options for the full-text Indian patent database MCPaIRS!

Coverage and Subscription options

MCPaIRS is a subscription-based Indian patent full-text database created by Molecular Connections Ltd. According to the homepage, the database provides XML records of full-text granted Indian patents and patent applications, and legal status information is also included for each document. The database is updated weekly.

According to information provided by a representative from Molecular Connections, McPaIRS offers full-text coverage of over 300,000 Indian patent applications and granted patents.  Additional highlights of McPaIRS coverage include:

• Back files of full-text Indian patent data from 2000-2011 for both patent applications and granted patents
• Front files (2012 onwards) updated within 7 working data from the date of publication
• Bibliographic information of Indian patent applications and granted patents from 1981-1999
•  Regional (e.g. Hindi) & international (e.g. Chinese) language patents, translated by in-house translators
• English synonyms added to regional terms present in the patent
• Legal status data
• More than 1.7 million drawings in TIFF format

MCPaIRS offers free, basic, regular, and premium subscription models. See this comparison sheet (PDF) for more information about the features for each subscription model.  Users can select to sign up for the site (and fill in a request form for trial access) through the “Sign Up” link on the homepage in the upper right corner of the screen beside the “Login” button.

Search Options

After registering and signing in, McPAIRS can be searched through two different search forms:

• Quick Search – Users can enter keywords or phrases, or users can create more complex queries utilizing field prefixes, Boolean operators, proximity operators, and wild card operators. The Quick Search therefore doubles as both a keyword search form and a command-line interface.

The Quick Search form, which can be used as a command line interface to construct more complex queries.

• Advanced Search – This fielded search form allows users to enter keywords or dates in text boxes associated with specific fields. Available fields include title, abstract, full-text, applicant(s), inventor(s), filing date, grant date, priority date, patent number, application number, publication number, and IPC code. Boolean operators may be used within the fielded forms.

The Advanced Search form (screenshot from the MCPaIRS Help Guide).

Viewing Features

Results will display with query details and number of results included above the results list.  Keywords are highlighted in the results list, and the title, application/patent numbers, applicants, inventors, and an abstract are listed for each result. From the results page, users can:

• Filter results by year
• Select individual or multiple results via check box to be exported (CSV or HTML format)
• Select to order individual results
• Select the result title to load the full-text page
• Select to view the legal status for individual results

The results page, with the query details and number of results above the result list (screenshot from the MCPaIRS Help Guide).

The full-text record includes bibliographic data, any available drawing, the legal status, claims, the complete specification, and the option to download the record in PDF, XML, HTML, CSV, or IMG formats.  A side menu on the full record screen allows the user to skip to specific sections of the record.

A section of a full record for a patent document on MCPaIRS (screenshot from the MCPaIRS Help Guide).

Conclusion

The user interface on the MCPaIRS portal appears very simple to use, with either a fielded search form or the option to enter keywords into a quick search form.  Users also have the option to create more complex queries through the quick search form using  field prefixes, Boolean operators, proximity operators, and wild card operators. MCPaIRS may be a cheaper alternative to large patent systems that contain Indian full-text collections, especially if users are only looking for access to Indian patent documents.  I’d definitely recommend first getting a free trial to MCPaIRS to test the coverage of the system and identify any possible gaps in full-text or bibliographic coverage.  Professional patent searchers will always carefully analyze the coverage of potential search systems in order to identify the best resources for a particular prior art search.

Do you know of any other full-text databases for Indian patent documents?  Let us know in the comments!

This post was contributed by Joelle Mornini. The Intellogist blog is provided for free by Intellogist’s parent company Landon IP, a major provider of patent searches, trademark searches, technical translations, and information retrieval services.

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