Current status in global
context
Every country has got a
system for disseminating the patent information generated in that
country.
For the commercial
patent information providers, online databases seem to be the most
preferred and lucrative means of disseminating patent information.
However, less profit making organisation and the national libraries
prefer to use CD-ROMs followed by printed products to deliver patent
information to the users. Those patent information providers who
mainly provide patent information in the form of online database
have not always found a captive market for spin off CD-ROM products.
This may be due to nonuser friendliness of the software and the
other software interface problems, which need to be addressed.
In fact, printed product, spin off
products of online source still have the edge over CD-ROMs. However,
the patent offices and libraries find it easier, and prefer to
disseminate their information using CD-ROM and printed products
rather than online sources. This may be related to the type of
patent data being disseminated. Patent offices and libraries mainly
make available primary patent sources, i.e. the full patent
specification, which is preferably stored on CD-ROMs or as hard
copy. By contrast, commercial information is provided in the form of
abstracts classification system; this type of information is more
suitable for offline sources.
Patent information
availability
Normally the information
about patents is available from the following sources :
Patent websites
The following major patent
websites are available for users searching the patents literature
available globally.
1.
MICROPAT
(http://www.micropatent.com)
Micropatent is globally
engaged in the production and distribution of patents and trademarks
information through internet, intranet and CD-ROM database to R&D
workers. It provides over 25 million fulltext patent copies from its
websites with the help of a large collection from different
countries.
2. WIPO
(http://www.wipo.int)
The website provides access
to the collection and services on IPR maintained by World
International Property Organisation (WIPO) library. It also
maintains a large number of journals on patents. The library
provides a table of contents service through internet or journals.
3. Faxpat Optipat
(http://www.optipat.com)
This website is owned by
Optipat Inc., which is an information company providing internet
downloadable US patents, printed documents, CD-ROM collections and a
variety of other services on the intellectual property. This site
allows accessing over 2 million US patents and also download image
files of issued US patents. It has 24 million images from 1974
onwards.
4. Japan Patent Office
homepage (http://www.jpo.go.jp/homee.html)
Japanese patent office
maintains this site. Users can find information through this site
about Japanese patents, guides searching Japanese patents,
statistics, reports, policies, PAJ news, etc. The status about the
patent granted, registered and application received is also
available which can be downloaded.
5. UK Patent Office
(http://www.patent.gov.uk)
This site is maintained by
the UK patent office with the objective to stimulate innovation and
the international competitiveness of industry through IPR. It offers
bibliographic searches, patents watching, patenting status, family
searching and patent ability assessment. Users can also get
information about special patents projects through a sophisticated
concept based search.
6. Thomson : Dialog
(http://library.dialog.com/bluesheets/html/B10351.html)
Derwent World Patent Index (DWPI)
produced by Thomson Derwent, provides access to information from
more than 22.9 million patent documents, giving details of over 11.2
million inventions. As facts update, approximately 20,000 documents
from 40 patent-issuing authorities are added to DWPI. Patents from
the patent authorities over 40 countries covering all developed and
prominent developing countries are covered. Patent related items
from Research Disclosure and International Technology Disclosure
(Leased Publication June 1994) are also included. DWPI coveres
pharmaceuticals patents from 1963, agricultural patents from 1965,
polymer & plastic patents from 1966, chemical patents from 1970 and
patentable technologies from 1974.
7. US Patent and Trademark
Office (http://www.uspto.gov)
The US Patent and Trademark
Office promotes the progress of science and useful arts by securing
for limited time to investors the exclusive right to their
respective discoveries. It helps by disseminating both patent and
trademark information. It promotes an understanding of IP protection
and facilitates the developments and sharing of new technologies
worldwide.
8. Canadian Intellectual
Property Office
(http://patents1.ic.gc.ca/content-e.html#background)
The Canadian Intellectual
Property Office website is an interactive site. This site has been
designed to help the users to create simple and powerful searches on
Canadian patents database, contains documents from 1920 till
present. The database is updated regularly. It contains images, text
and bibliographical database.
From CD-ROMs
CD-Rom technology facilitates easy access
and searching of a large number of documents. It is cost effective
in comparison with online databases, which is very costly due to the
telecommunication cost involved. In view of this, various patent
information service providers have produced patent information on
CD-ROM. A few examples are listed below:
1. Chemical Abstract Service
(CAS ); STN :
This is published by the
Chemical Abstract Service (CAS), USA. It contains information on
patent documents published by CAS during the current volume period.
It includes the entries for all newly abstracted patent documents on
inventions, cross references to the first abstracted documents.
2. The European Patent
Office (EPO)
EPO offers several patent
information services including CD-ROM based products. EPO also
provides countrywise patent information on CD-ROM. All these
products are also available from commercial vendors like Derwent and
Micropatent. The Following CD-ROM databases are available from EPO :
(a) ESPACE World :
The ESPACE series of CD-ROMs
provides comprehensive coverage of European, PCT and UK patent
applications and granted patents.
(b) ESPACE-First :
Contains the facsimiles of just the first
pages of EPO and PCT documents. It is published bimonthly and covers
information from 1988 onwards.
(c) ESPACE-EP :
It is weekly publication of European patents.
It is published in two series, viz. EP-A and EP-B. EP-A refers to
patent applications and EP-B refers to the granted patents.
(d) ESPACE-Access :
This is also published in two series, EP-A
and EP-B. Espace-Access EP-A provides unlimited access to the
complete bibliographic data of European patent applications since
1978. It is updated monthly. Espace-Access EP-B is a new index and
search tool for granted European patents.
(e) ESPACE-Bulletin and
ESPACE Legal : Bulletin CD
contains the complete history and legal status of all European
patent applications since the foundation of EPO in 1978 and legal CD
is designed for patent lawyers and for searchers dealing with patent
laws. Issued twice yearly, this contains all the decisions of Board
of Appeal of EPO since 1978.
3. The US Patent and
Trademark
CASSIS/BIB CD-ROM
gives the status of utility patents withdrawn from 1969 to present
and from 1977 to present for other patents. The BIB CD-ROM also
indicates the expiration of utility patents for applications filed
after December 12, 1980.
4. German Patent Office
DEPAROM German patent
publications (documents A1, C1-C4, U1, T1 and T2-T4) brigns out
approximately 140 CDs per year.
5. Korean Patent office
Industrial Property
Rights Gazette in CD-ROM KIPO's publication of the earlier IPR
gazettes is in the form of a book in 1948, IPR gazettes in the form
of CD-ROM were published on May 1999 onwards.
6. China Patent Office
(a) Chinese Patent
Specification CD-ROM : Produced in
January 1994, it contains all the specifications of patented
inventions and utility models since September 1985.
(b) CD-ROM of Chinese Patent
Abstract : This CD-ROM collects all
of the patent information since September 1985, which includes
utility models, inventions and designs. Every piece of information
covers bibliographic data, such as the information of the inventor,
date of invention, date of publication, priority right, abstract,
legal status, etc. The CD-ROM provides more than 20 search entries.
(c) Patent Gazette CD-ROM :
It provides full text information in every issue, and for the first
time the figures of design patent was digitised. The CD-ROM was
published every three weeks since 1998, and by the end of 2001, a
total of 72 disks had been issued.
(d) CD-ROM for Design :
Since 1998, CD-ROM for Design Patent has been an electronic product
specified for industrial design. The newly produced set of CD-ROM
(100 in total) adopted electronic scanning method, representing the
lines, gray charts and colour charts of all the industrial designs
since 1985.
7. Hungary Patent Office
Hunpatka Patent CD-ROM is
brought by the Hungary Patent Office.
8. Canadian Intellectual
Property Office (CIPO)
The CD-ROMs are produced weekly using the
MIMOSA CD-ROM software under two new titles :
(a)
Canadian Laid-open Applications (2 CD-ROMs/week) and
(b) Canadian
Granted Patents (1 CD-ROM/week).
9. Japanese Patent Office
PAJ (Patent Abstract of
Japan) CD-ROM : One can search this CD online from website
http://www1.ipdl.jpo.go.jp/PA1/cgi-bin/PA1INIT, contants data
from 1976.
10. The Trilateral Offices
GLOBALPat CD-ROM :
The FPDB-CD is an English language collection representing
nearly all of the world's patent literature. Documents are presented
as bibliographic text, including title and abstract, where
appropriate, the image of a representative drawing. The Trilateral
Offices, the US Patent and Trademark Office, the European Patent
Office and the Japanese Patent Office; jointly financed the
preparation of the database and the translation of all non-English
abstracts.
Patent information scenario
in India
Most of the Indian Patent
administration agencies provide patent search, through CD-ROMs. Only
two agencies, namely TIFAC and NIC provide online search besides
CD-ROMs. The details are given below :
1. Patent Office of India
(a) Gazette of India :
Gazette of India is a primary source of information on patent, which
is published through patent office.
(b) Issuance of CD-ROM
database : The basic information
given includes the title, inventor, name of the assignees, patent
number, the main claims and a few relevant diagrams. It is possible
to obtain a copy of the complete specification and the provisional
specification from the patent office by paying a prescribed fee.
(c) Accumulation of patent
information
(i) Incomprehensive document
database system, gazette, etc., are converted into digital files and
can be referred online and in real time from terminals.
(ii) The reference service started for
external users, in 1963 at the Patent Offices in New Delhi, Mumbai,
Chennai and Kolkata. Nationa Patent Information Centre, Nagpur also
offers patent information services. That epart, the Patent Office
has also authorised some organisations like NPL, HBTI, etc.
2. Technology Information
Forcasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC)
An autonomous organisation
under the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India,
is working in the field of technology information and forecasting.
Patent Facilitating Centre (PFC), TIFAC is providing IPR information
to the information seekers through following :
-
Patent search facilities
for Indian, US and European patents (CD-Rom, online and print)
-
Database on Indian patent
applications filed and applications accepted, which are open for
opposition.
-
These are now available on
CDs (Ekaswa A and Ekaswa B).
-
First ever video and
CD-ROM on patent awareness titled 'Patents Made Easy'.
-
Mechanism for obtaining
full text patent documents and patent searching elsewhere.
-
Intellectual Property
Rights (IPR) Bulletin.
The TIFAC
undertakes publication of following CD-Roms :
(a)
EKASWA-A Database : Patent applications filed in India
as published in the Gazette of India (Part III, Section 2) from
January 1995 onwards.
(b)
EKASWA-B Database : Patent applications notified for
opposition in the Gazette of India (Part III, Section 2) published
from January 1995 onwards.
Both the databases
are available online http://www.tifac.org.in/ The databases
are quite user friendly and equipped with latest search tools and
logical operations. The CD-ROMs can be run on the Windows 95 and
advanced versions.
TIFAC also provides
additional IPR information through their websites http://www.tifac.org.in
and http://www.indian patents.org/index.htm with the
following contexts :
3. National Research
Development Corporation (NRDC)
NRDC has brought out a
CD-ROM titled ‘IPR: Key to New Wealth’. This interactive CD has
hours of rich media video, audio, graphics, animation and over ten
thousand pages of technical information containing complete IPR
related FAQs, Acts, treaties, statistics, case studies, etc. This is
basically an IPR awareness CD-ROM.
4. Council of Scientific and
Industrial Research (CSIR)
CSIR is India's largest
research and development organisation. The CSIR laboratories have
developed over 4000 technologies. The CSIR is providing the patent
facility from Intellectual Property Management Division (IPMD).
Indian patent
database (INPAT) a database CD on Indian patents contains nearly
50,000 records on the patents granted in India from 1972 to December
1997. The patents can be searched by the parameters like inventor,
applicant, keywords, subject, country, patent number, etc.
5. National Informatics
Centre (NIC)
Patent and Know-how
Information Division, NIC, provides online search to one of the most
comprehensive and largest database on the patent bibliography. This
database is known as EPIDOS (European Patent Information and
Document Service). European Patent Office (EPO) publishes this
database. EPO has been receiving the bibliography of all the patents
filed and granted in approximately 68 countries since 1968. It
contains approximately 40 millions references from 1968 to 2001.
Almost 3 millions references are added each year.
Online patent
service of NIC provides free access to INPADOC-EPIDOS database to
the registered users. Registration is open to all and is free of
cost. Off-line services at NIC Patent Division include
bibliographic search, searches on Abstracts and full Patents.
6. Traditional Knowledge
Digital Library (TKDL)
Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL),
a collaborative effort between NISCAIR, CSIR and Indian System of
Medicine and Homoeopathy (ISM&H), Ministry of Health and Family
Welfare, was launched on March 27, 2002. TKDL is a storehouse of
current traditional knowledge about plants and the ways and means to
treat diseases with traditional medicine. The first phase of the
project covers Ayurveda and will eventually encompass Unani, Siddha,
Naturopathy, Homeopathy and also folklore.
The information from the
Sanskrit verses (Slokas, which will be translated in various
languages) is codified according to International Patent
Classification (IPC), the unicode (a single code for all languages)
are then converted into a database in different languages. The WIPO
has adopted the TKDL database for all future prototyping, testing,
dissemination, documentation and transmission of TK details.
Although, there are
a number of challenges of the digital communication, Indian IT laws
does not contain provisions to face the challenges posed by the net.
Though India has signed the WCT and the WPPT treaties adopted by
WIPO, they have not been ratified so far.
It is heartening to
note that WIPO has taken the initiative under PCT agreement to
create the IPR digital library of Indian patents. The paper has
described in detail various Indian Patent CD-ROMs, with their
characteristic features.The IPR awareness is fast creeping into the
Indian society. India could only achieve competitiveness at the
global level in the area of IPR by undertaking necessary initiatives
both at government and private levels.
References
-
Bhattacharya P, Digital
Information Services: Challenges and opportunities, Paper
presented in the NIFM-MANLIBNET 4th Annual National Convention on
Paradigm of Information Technology : Application to Business and
Management Libraries, National Institute of Financial Management,
Faridabad, 3-5th April, 2002.
-
Eisenshitz T and Turner P,
Rights and responsibilities in the digital age : Problems with
strong copyright in an information society, Journal of Information
Science, 23(3), 209-223, 1997.
-
Ganguli P, Intellectual
Property Rights : Unleashing The Knowledge Economy, Tata
McGraw-Hill, New Delhi, pp 506, 2001.
-
Gopinath K and Ravishanker M
K, Intellectual Property Rights in the computer software : Issues
at stake for developing countries, Information Technology for
Development, 7(4), 1996.
-
Gupta V K, Intellectual
property rights in commercialisation of R&D and transfer of
technology, Journal of Intellectual Property Rights, (2), pp
181-190, July 1997,
-
Chakravarti A K, Krishnan A S
A and Vasanta B, Patent Information and Electronics, Electronics
Information & Planning (EIP), August 1995.
-
Siddiquee Q, An evaluation of
internet as resource for information on patent and intellectual
property rights (IPRs), Dissertation submitted to INSDOC for the
Award of AIS INSDOC (CSIR), New Delhi, 2001.
-
Tripathi R C, Grove S S and
Chakravarti A K, Computer software and IPR : Present status in
India and future directions, Electronics Information and Planning,
New Delhi, 1998.
-
Websites:
(a) CSIR (The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) :
http:/www.csir.res.in
(b) Broward County : http://www.co.broward.fl.us/lii12535.htm
(c) INSDOC (Indian National Scientific Doumentation Centre) :
www.insdoc.org
(d) NIC (National Informatics Centre) : http://patinfo.nic.in
(e) CGPDTM (Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade
Marks) : http://www.patentoffice.nic.in/
(f) NRDC (National Research Development Corporation) : http:/www.nrdcindia.com
(g) Rossco's WWW Corner : http://www.tip.net.au/~rossco/psearch.htm
(h) TKDL (Traditional Knowledge Digital Library) http://www.wipo.org/globalissues/databases/tkportal/presentations/indiatkdl.pdf