WIPO’s PatentScope Releases Video Tutorials

World Intellectual Property Organization‘s (WIPO) PatentScope patent searching system has released a collection of video tutorials to help searchers learn how to conduct searches and make the most of the system. Read on for a detailed report.

Two Fantastic Updates to Free Patent Search Tools: Espacenet and PATENTSCOPE

Free patent search tools like Espacenet and PATENTSCOPE are an excellent resource for both casual  and professional patent searchers who want to quickly locate data on a specific patent document or scope out more detailed citation, legal status, and family data for both US and non-US patent documents. Recently, both Espacenet (created by the EPO) and PATENTSCOPE (created by WIPO) released some useful new updates: direct links to the Common Citation Document (CCD) viewer are now accessible from INPADOC family lists on Espacenet, and a new collection of US patent documents has been added to PATENTSCOPE. 

After the jump, learn about the new citation viewing features for INPADOC families on Espacenet, and find out the coverage of PATENTSCOPE’s new US collection!

Expand Your Patent Search Query Through Multilingual Translation Tools

[tweetmeme source=”Intellogist” only_single=false] During an initial scope of the available prior art, it can be useful for a patent searcher to expand their query through machine-translation tools to include query terms translated into multiple major languages.  Even if the searcher isn’t fluent in multiple languages, they will still be able to get a general idea of how much prior art is available internationally on a particular technology. When conducting a global prior art search, there’s no replacement for a search conducted by one or more native-language speakers through the patent and non-patent literature in multiple major languages.  Although the following query expansion tools shouldn’t be used as substitutes for a thorough search by multilingual professional searchers, these tools will still be helpful for scoping the availability of international prior art.

The CLIR (Cross-Lingual Information Retrieval) on PATENTSCOPE is the best free option for cross-lingual query expansion, and we’ve briefly looked at this tool in a past Valentine’s Day post.  If users have access to PatBase, they can utilize the new Language Explorer tool (added to the system in March 2012) to expand their query.   The Language Explorer tool is powered by CLIR, so users will get similar query expansion suggestions through both CLIR and Language Explorer.  If users subscribe to Questel’s Orbit.com platform, they can utilize the Multilingual Search Wizard to expand their search with terms in German, French, and English.

After the jump, we’ll take a closer look at each of the multilingual query expansion tools on PATENTSCOPE, PatBase, and Orbit.com!

PATENTSCOPE: Better free patent searching with new system upgrades

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The WIPO PATENTSCOPE team has been very busy in the past month, releasing two big updates. The changes include better search functionality, a friendlier user interface (UI), and a fun analysis feature.

PATENTSCOPE is quickly rivaling Espacenet as a free “international” patent search system, for good reasons. The expanding feature set combined with unique coverage makes PATENTSCOPE a system that patent search professionals need to be aware of.

Today we’ll take a look at the latest improvements to this ever-developing free patent search system.

A Patent Application as Performance Art?

[tweetmeme source=”Intellogist” only_single=false] According to the the USPTO, the purpose of the US patent system is to “promote the progress of science and the useful arts by securing for limited times to inventors the exclusive right to their respective discoveries” (from Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the US Constitution).  Yes, we may occasionally find humorous patents that have the secondary effect of entertaining us, but even the most bizarre patent application is usually submitted in order to protect the inventors’ or applicants’ rights to a perceived discovery.  But once in a blue moon, you come across a patent application that must have been filed for another reason: it can only be a joke.  Or a brilliant piece of performance art.

The Anticipate This!™ Patent and Trademark Law Blog recently posted about “U.S. Pat. Appl. Pub. No. 20060259306:  Business method protecting jokes.”  The Blogging Biodiversity blog concluded that this ridiculous patent application (which also has equivalent patent applications in the UK and Australia, as well as a PCT application) must be a joke:

The whole thing is obviously a joke itself, intended to point out some of the absurdities of the patent system. For those with any background in patent law, reading the stiff language of patent applications applied to such a silly subject is additionally amusing.

I’m going to take this a step further: I believe that this patent application is an incredibly innovative piece of performance art.  After the jump, I’ll take a look at some file history documents for this patent application in PAIR and PATENTSCOPE, and I’ll explain why this application truly is a work of art.

Expand your search scope with cross lingual search

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Hello all,

I wanted to quickly check in from Baltimore where I’m attending the Patent Information Users Group annual conference (by the way, you can follow Intellogist on Twitter to see my live tweets from the conference!).  I saw a presentation about a new feature of WIPO’s PATENTSCOPE ® tool today that will absolutely blow your mind.  This is the best cross lingual search feature I have seen so far, and it’s available for free, which should really make you sit up and take notice!