Free Online Patent Search Portals: Syria and Saudi Arabia

When conducting patent searches or patent analysis projects that are global in scope, patent search professionals will often need to locate bibliographic or full-text data for patent records from certain issuing authorities that have very limited or zero coverage within the regularly used INPADOC data.  The patent searcher will then need to find alternative methods for locating the patent data, such as accessing the data directly on the patent authority website.

For example, the patenting authorities for Syria (SY) and Saudi Arabia (SA) are not covered by INPADOC (although Saudi Arabia is a member of the GCC, which is covered by INPADOC). Searchers will therefore need to go directly to the issuing authority websites to locate free online patent data for Syria and Saudi Arabia.

After the jump, learn how to access the patent search service on the Syrian Patent Office website and the KACST Patent Search for Saudi Arabia!

Syria: Syrian Patent Office Search

The website for the Syrian Patent Office is available in both English and Arabic, although the patent search form is only accessible in Arabic. From the English-language homepage of the Syrian Patent Office website, users can select the “Search Patents” option in the main vertical menu. The user will then be directed to the Arabic-language patent search form, since “the patent index is only available in Arabic.” Users can utilize a machine translation tool like Google Translate to translate the search form into their language of choice, although search queries should be entered into the form in Arabic.

The patent search form available through the Arabic version of the Syrian Patent Office website includes two search options:

• Quick Search – Enter a keyword to search for inventor name or patent document title.
• Advanced Search – Use the fielded search form to search by inventor name, applicant name, ISBN, filing date, IPC code, patent number, grant date, priority number, priority date, title keyword, or abstract keyword.

Quick and advanced search options on the Syrian Patent Office Search (translated from Arabic to English using Google Translate).

Search results are displayed in a list that includes patent title and inventor name for each result (10 results per page). Users can’t translate the search result page directly on Google Translate, so they will need to cut and paste the hit list text into the machine translation tool to view a translation from Arabic to the language of choice.

Results for a patent search on the Syrian Patent Office website (in Arabic).

Select the link to the far left of each result to view the full record for the document. The page containing the full record can be translated directly by Google Translate. The full record includes bibliographic data, abstract (when available), and indicates whether any drawings or additional diagrams are available for download (although there does not appear to be any option to download the indicated files).

Bibliographic data in the full record view for a Syrian patent document (results translated from Arabic using Google Translate).

Saudi Arabia: KACST Patent Search (Saudi Arabia)

The King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) “is an independent scientific organization administratively reporting to the Prime Minister” of Saudi Arabia that is both the Saudi Arabian national science agency and its laboratories. The KACST website is available in either Arabic or English. From the homepage of the English KACST website, users can select the “Services” option in the horizontal top menu, and then select the “Patent Request” option from the Services page to open the English-language patent search form. The form appears to search only SA applications (of any status).

The English-language search form includes a number of fielded search options, including:

• Application title
• Abstract
• Application number
• Filing date/number/country (drop-down menu in Arabic)
• Application date (Hijri or Gregorian calender)
• Publication date (Hijri or Gregorian calender)
• Applicant name
• Applicant nationality (drop-down menu in Arabic)
• Inventor/designer name
• Inventor/designer nationality (drop-down menu in Arabic)
• Classification (IPC)
• Patent number
• Grant date (Hijri or Gregorian calender)

The English-language patent search form on the KACST website.

Beside each search field, users can select a question mark icon to open a help file (Arabic only). English keywords appear to be accepted by the search form.

After entering a query, the results will appear in a hit list of 30 results per page, with basic bibliographic data and status included for each result.

Hit list from a patent search on the KACST website, including basic bibliographic data for each result.

Users can select the invention title to view the full document record, which includes bibliographic data and an abstract (when available). In the full record view, the user can also select the “Application” or “Patent” links to download TIFF images for sections of the application and patent documents for the record.

Options to download section of the full patent document in TIFF format from the full record view.

Conclusion

The Syrian Patent Office search service is particularly difficult to navigate, due to the language barrier and the limited search options.  The bibliographic data provided by the search service is also very limited, and the abstract is often not available for many patent records. It is also unclear how the user can access the drawing files that are indicated as available for certain patent records.  In contrast, the Saudi Arabian patent search service on the KACST website is much easier for English-language users to search, thanks to an English search form with a wide variety of fielded search options.  It’s also very useful that users can directly download full-text TIFF images (in Arabic) for sections of the patent application or granted patent in the full record view.  Although the Syrian Patent Office search service provides a much more basic search interface and limited data in comparison to the KACST search, both services let users freely access patent data that would otherwise be be difficult to locate.

Do you know of other patent authority websites that you’d like to see featured on Intellogist? 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.