Searching for patents

Transcription

1 Searching for patents Why does patent information matter? Espacenet The European Patent Register Dominique Winne Examiner (ICT) 8 November 2017 Contents Presentation Why patent information matters Espacenet The European Patent Register 2 1

2 Why patent information matters 3 At least seven good reasons 4 2

3 Because patent information helps you to Avoid duplication 1 of R&D expenditure 5 6 3

4 Because patent information helps you to 2 Find out what technology already exists and build on it 7 More and more applications every year Year of application Source: EPO Worldwide Patent Statistical Database (PATSTAT), October 2013 edition 8 4

5 Four applications a minute - every hour of the day and night! 9 Applications in the 5 biggest offices Applications China United States of America Japan Republic of Korea Application year 10 5

6 Over 50% of applications are in an Asian language 11 Translate documents 12 6

7 Searching technical information in Espacenet More than 95 million patent documents (applications, granted patents, search reports, non-patent literature) Data from 90 patent authorities worldwide Data from 1836 to today Source of technical information Available free-of-charge via the internet at Secure access (https) 13 The old days: Paper documentation papers groups central library 14 7

8 Where to find Espacenet URL to remember: 15 Espacenet landing page 16 8

9 Espacenet - Smart search Free text entries: Command line format using field identifiers: 17 Espacenet - Smart search 18 9

10 Example Spectacles with liquid lens to adjust focal length Source: 19 Espacenet truncations (wildcards)? Replaces 0 or 1 character car? car, cars, card, cards, carrier # Replaces exactly 1 character * Replaces a character string of any length Only right-hand truncation car# car, cars, card, cards, carrier car* car, cars, card, cards, carrier car* car, cars, card, carrier; car*s 20 10

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12 23 Excursion: Classification systems

13 International Patent Classification (IPC) 25 Classification systems The IPC has a hierarchical structure: Sections Classes Sub-classes Groups Sub-groups CPC A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H e.g. A47 e.g. A47J e.g. A47J37 e.g. A47J37/08 e.g. A47J37/

14 Espacenet - Classification search Search by keyword or a classification symbol 27 more at

15 ... back to our example

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17 Claim reading 2 unclear part 1 3 Claim reading 2 unclear part 1 3 scope of the claim 17

18 In practice A classes/concepts C B a b key words c In practice A classes/concepts C B key words a c b 18

19 In practice A classes/concepts C B In practice A classes/concepts C B 19

20 In practice re-focus 40 20

21 Name searches Hint: Use phrase search for natural persons, i.e. "<LastName> <FirstName>", to avoid hits with first/last names belonging to different persons 41 Because patent information helps you to Check out where an invention is protected by a 3 patent, and where it is not 42 21

22 Looking up legal information in the European Patent Register Free online access to: legal status information procedural status information of patent applications at the EPO post-grant information of European patents Secure access Register alert monitoring tool

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24 Federated Register EP Register National register data links to national registers 47 European patent register Advanced search 48 24

25 All documents = online public file inspection 49 Worldwide legal status information (INPADOC) The EPO collects legal status data from over 40 countries. In Espacenet, Register, OPS, GPI, PATSTAT In commercial databases 50 25

26 51 Because patent information helps you to Avoid infringing other 4 people's patent rights 52 26

27 More than1 million patents granted each YEAR Year of grant Source: EPO Worldwide Patent Statistical Database (PATSTAT), October 2013 edition 53 Nearly 50% of all applications filed each year are granted 54 27

28 Highest damages awarded Top ten damages awards in US Federal District courts since 1995: Year Plaintiff Defendant Technology Award (in USDm) 2009 Centocor Ortho Biotech Inc. Abbott Laboratories Arthritis drugs Lucent Technologies Inc. Microsoft Corp. MP3 technology Noise reduction on 2012 Carnegie Mellon University Marvell Technology Group circuits for disk drives Apple Inc. Samsung Electronics Co. Smartphone software Monsanto Company E.I. Dupont De Nemours and Company Genetically modified soybean seeds Mirror WorldsLLC Apple Inc. Operating system Cordis Corp. Medtronic Vascular, Inc. Vascular stents Eolas Technologies Inc. Microsoft Corp. Internet browser Bruce N. Saffran M.D. Johnson & Johnson Drug-eluting stents Bruce N. Saffran M.D. Boston Scientific Corp. Drug-eluting stents 432 Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2014 patent litigation study 55 Because patent information helps you to Keep track of what other inventors and companies 5 are doing 56 28

29 57 Where is it happening? Europe Australia Canada China Japan Korea Singapore Taiwan USA 29

30 Because patent information helps you to Identify new partners for 6 licensing IP

31 Because patent information helps you to Spot trends in technology or 7 the market at an early stage 61 Statistics/trends E.g. energy storage: Energy storage: Patent applications to the Applicants from European Union (28 countries) Japan United States Year of application Source: stats.oecd.org/ 62 31

32 European patent applications (Annual report 2015) 63 Free EPO resources at

33 Technical information at 65 Legal information at

34 Business information at 67 Asian patent information at

35 Take-home message Use (free) patent databases to retrieve strategic information. Consult them before and during research, development and commercialisation. Remember that patent information is an important source of technical, legal and business-related information. Use Espacenet and other free sources to identify existing technologies, gaps in technology, key players, potential infringement and trends. 69 Thank you for your attention! 70 35