The Patent Documentation Group (PDG)

The PDG was founded in 1957 by thirteen European chemical and oil companies, with the main aim of abstracting patent documents and searching for patent families. During the 1960s the group became engaged in other activities, notably exchanging views on patent information management matters and testing new systems for polymer patents.In 1969 the Group was reorganised with a permanent secretary in Basel, and objectives and activities fixed by statutes. In the early 1970s, due to the development of Derwent's abstract services, the PDG discontinued its abstracting work, and efforts were concentrated on Working Groups studying matters such as networks and online retrieval, microfilm equipment, and developments in national and international patent laws. In 1984 the statutes were changed to allow ‘non-chemical’ companies to become members, and in 1985 membership increased to 23 companies covering five countries.     

A survey of users of the new British Library Patent Information Centre

The British Library acts as the national patent library in the UK. The patent library moved into a new, purpose-built building in London in 1999, to join other parts of the national library. A market research study was commissioned to study the changes in use of the patent library brought about both by the move and by other factors such as the increased accessibility of patent information on the Internet. The study looked at, for instance, the geographical location and type of business of users, their reason for searching (for themselves or for others, for checking originality, technical background, etc.), the extent to which users actually visited the library, what attributes they required of the services provided, and their use of Internet resources. The results reported include some comparisons with regional patent libraries in the UK. The article concludes that users' requirements have changed significantly, especially as a result of the impact of the Internet, and that the services provided need to adapt to these changes. The study results are being further analysed to determine the best way forward for these services.     

Patent information from the Polish Patent Office

The Polish Patent Office activity within the scope of its patent information policy—with emphasis on the changes since the 1990s—is described. In addition to aspects of patent searching, such as documentation and databases, dissemination activities, for example education and training, and the role of Patent Information Centres, is covered. New challenges associated with the promotion of intellectual property protection and its role for the economy are also highlighted.     

Patent information in a changing world: Perspectives from a major patent office

The patent information field is in a state of flux, caused by new tools and changing habits and philosophies. In this article a number of major issues arising from this situation are discussed, some ways in which the EPO is responding are described, and some ideas on future developments provided.Patents are increasingly rated as valuable assets, but is patent information, and especially bibliographic patent information, being treated with the same meticulousness as in the past? More people are searching than ever before. But are they squeezing out the information professional? What effect will the IPC reform, the arrival of XML and other developments have? By focussing on completeness, timeliness and correctness, can patent offices make a contribution to alleviate the situation?The author concludes that, more than ever before, it is important that expert patent information professionals ensure that their views and needs are communicated to both initial data suppliers, mainly patent offices, and to commercial database suppliers and hosts.     

TSUG, the Thomson Scientific User Group in the UK

The forerunner to the UK-based Thomson Scientific User Group (TSUG) was formed in 1990 as a professional interest group for patent information searchers using Derwent patent abstracts and related products. Although discussion and activities still revolve around this area, the group today also exchanges information on and searching experience with any other patent-related information products of interest and relevance to members. The group and its members maintain close links with Thomson Scientific for the purposes of product development and product evaluation.     

Patent information retrieval: approaching a method and analysing nanotechnology patent collaborations

Many challenges still remain in the processing of explicit technological knowledge documents such as patents. Given the limitations and drawbacks of the existing approaches, this research sets out to develop an improved method for searching patent databases and extracting patent information to increase the efficiency and reliability of nanotechnology patent information retrieval process and to empirically analyse patent collaboration. A tech-mining method was applied and the subsequent analysis was performed using Thomson data analyser software. The findings show that nations such as Korea and Japan are highly collaborative in sharing technological knowledge across academic and corporate organisations within their national boundaries, and China presents, in some cases, a great illustration of effective patent collaboration and co-inventorship. This study also analyses key patent strengths by country, organisation and technology.     

AIDB, the Italian Patent Information Users Group

The Italian Patent Information Users Group (AIDB—Associazione Italiana Documentalisti Brevettuali) was founded on February 24, 2004. At the end of that year, AIDB had 58 members, coming from different environments such as industry, private practice, public institutions, and content providers. During its first months of existence, AIDB coordinated various activities such as checking the extent and quality of documentation services offered by the Italian Patent and Trade Mark Office (UIBM), and promoting discussions about suitable certification schemes for professional patent searchers. In November 2004, AIDB organized a two-day national patent information conference, focused on the business impact of patent information and on the certification of patent searchers.     

基于功能变更的专利产品创新再设计

目的从突破现有优秀专利壁垒的角度出发,将功能变更方法应用于专利产品的创新再设计。方法确定专利总功能和技术特征,建立功能结构模型,泛化核心功能并分析功能语义的同义或反义表述,选用合适的功能表达来替换,并构建新的功能结构模型。结果最终通过对功能新表述寻找新的实现方法,得到专利产品的创新再设计的物理模型。结论实现对专利产品的创新再设计,形成自己有特色有价值的专利。同时以一种酒类包装盒为实例验证上述创新再设计方法的有效性。     

The search and advisory service of the United Kingdom Patent Office

As part of its policy of continually improving the facilities available to the public for retrieval of patent and trade mark information, the UKPO has launched the ‘Search and Advisory Service’. Initial emphasis has been on trade marks and service marks, including searching online the UKTM database supplied by the Office's Trade Mark Registry and hosted by Pergamon InfoLine. Activities are being extended further into the online patents field, including services based on the Office's patents database which will shortly also be available online via InfoLine. State-of-the-art and related patent searches carried out through the Office's own hard copy collection of British and foreign patent specifications arranged, primarily, according to the United Kingdom Classification Key are also embraced.     

Forty years of World Patent Information: A bibliometric overview

World Patent Information (WPI) is the leading international academic peer reviewed journal in the field of patent information. The journal was launched in 1979 and celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2019. In recognition of this event, the aim of this work is to analyse the main actors, research themes and audiences of WPI. The analyses are based on the Scopus and Web of Science databases and include bibliographic coupling, co-citation and co-occurrence of author keywords. WPI is a boundary-spanning journal with authors from academia, industry and governmental organisations, such as patent authorities. This unique composition provides a prominent platform for knowledge transfer between academia and industry. In addition, WPI facilitates knowledge transfer between academia and industry, with research institutions citing contributions from authors affiliated to industry and patent offices. Furthermore, WPI not only crosses the boundaries between organisations (academia, industry and government), but also across disciplines, linking IP management, technology and innovation management, engineering, computer sciences, physical and natural sciences.     

Modernization of the Danish Patent Office

The article describes the problems which built up in the Danish Patent Office from 1977 to 1983, when it was thought that the government would ratify the European Patent Convention, and the steps taken since then to modernize the Office and deal with the staff problems and the backlogs which had built up when it became clear that ratification would not be achieved. The backlog of 40 000 pending patent applications was trimmed by over 7000 applications in which there was now no interest, extra staff engaged, outside training assistance sought, and a large computerisation program initiated. Efficiency of the technical staff resources is enhanced by postponing the examination of priority claiming applications until information of the progress of these applications to grant in one of a number of specified countries is obtained from the INPADOC PFS and PRS databases. The modernization of the Office, which is directed towards its internal structures and procedures, has for its purpose the improvement not only of services to applicants for industrial property rights, but also of services to users of patent information.     

Legal Validity Metrics for Patent Offices and Law Firms – Recycling of Patent Court Appeal Decisions for Quality Management

In all relevant patent systems an adversely affected party has the possibility to appeal the patent office's decision in front of a patent court or Board of Appeal (BoA). Within a European context, the EPO is, in a way, even engaging in de facto competition with national patent offices. As an example, the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA) provides quasi identical patent products and offers the same kind of legal recourse to the German patent court (BPatGer) for these products. Both offices offer an opposition procedure which is open for appeal, and also in the case of a refusal, both offices offer the possibility of appeals. Thus, the EPO Boards of Appeal are engaged in making decisions every year on around 2000 cases and, e.g., the BPatGer on 600 cases regarding the legal validity of the first instance's work. It is thus remarkable that, so far, nobody has systematically included the work of the patent courts in a statistical legal validity evaluation in the context of the Patent & Trademark Offices' (PTOs') quality assurance systems.Since there is obviously a need to establish a common standard for the comparison of first and second instance legal teachings in patent law, a methodology for comparative legal validity analysis is proposed in this paper. I have tested and optimised the approach while working as a project manager at the European Patent Office, based on analysis of 2300 appeal decisions from seven annual batches.     

Computerization of the Australian patent,trade mark and design Office

The work load of the Australian Office increased sharply in the last six years. Existing computer facilities were unable to respond to the needs of the office. Six million dollars outlay are required to establish new systems using computer capacity of another Government Agency. Priority of tasks are patent and trade mark administration systems, trade mark searching systems, use of graphics in patent and trade mark searching. Objectives of the new system are to increase internal efficiency of the office and be more responsive to public users of status, searching and technology information in industrial property records.     

专利信息报道未来的市场——创新与全球化

 高技术市场是全球性市场.这里要描述的是怎样利用专利信息把自己的技术水准与国际竞争对手相比较.此外,还进一步讨论了专利信息对认识新的竞争者,以及估计未来市场形势的潜在的作用.     

Patent applications of the Top 500 foreign investment corporations in China

Summary The paper focuses on the Top 500 foreign investment corporations (FICs) in China, by conducting data mining and system searching on the data-base of patent from the State Intellectual Property Office of the People's Republic of China (SIPO). Structure of patent applications, industrial distribution of patent applications, monopolistic tendency, technological innovation of Chinese companies and directions of foreign investment are studied.     

Progress report on the establishment of a Patent Information Centre (informationszentrum patente) in the Federal Republic of Germany

The author describes the structure of the sectorial information centre for patent information (IZ 17) which is being established in the Federal Republic of Germany as central information service under the responsibility of the German Patent Office. The local patent information services will be incorporated in the system. Details are further given on the work of the user's working party 17, which since April 1980 has taken part in the planning of the information centre by the German Patent Office.     

Patent information services in India with special reference to drugs and pharmaceuticals

Patent information is useful to a wide spectrum of users. Chemical patent information is particularly useful to those concerned with innovations in this area, as the chemical patent literature is almost of the same size as the chemical journal literature. National and International patent laws and treaties greatly influence the size of patent literature, its dissemination and exploitation for economic development. Paris Convention, WIPO and PCT programmes have all played an important role in the field of patent information. In India, patent information has a very significant role to play because the country's present law offers wide-ranging opportunities from adaptive development on a foreign patent to its commercialization. Patent information services in India are provided by several organisations which include the Patent Office Headquarters at Calcutta and its branches at New Delhi, Bombay and Madras; Patent Information System, Nagpur; National Informatics Centre, New Delhi; Patent Unit, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi; Technical Information Cell, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, Hyderabad; National Chemical Laboratory, Pune and National Information Centre for Drugs and Pharmaceuticals, Lucknow. Many of these organisations cover all areas of technology whereas others are restricted to particular disciplines. National Information Centre for Drugs and Pharmaceuticals is one such specialised centre restricted to only drugs and pharmaceutical. Its services such as patent bulletin and patent searches on selected drugs have been well accepted by the users. The Centre's holdings of foreign patent literature are meagre and need to be strengthened by acquiring them mainly from the U.S.A., France, F.R.G., Japan, Italy and Switzerland which are the top six nations responsible for introducing new drug substances. With a computer now installed at the Centre, the Centre should acquire INPADOC database and collaborate with existing Patent Information System, Nagpur and National Informatics Centre, New Delhi for better services. A survey of the patent information services in the countries of Asia and the Pacific carried out by the International Bureau of WIPO has put India in the first category because here information services are rendered by both the Industrial property organisation and other outside agencies.     

面向创新的专利规避设计研究

目的研究针对现有专利高效快速地进行规避设计,去实现产品创新设计。方法通过了解我国专利的现状,结合专利规避设计策略,对专利规避设计的具体方法进行分析归纳。深入分析了基于单个专利的功能裁剪方法,基于核心专利群的规避设计,以及针对全方位专利壁垒的专利组合设计,同时对其他相关专利规避设计方法进行了总结。结论专利规避是避开其他竞争对手的专利权利要求而进行创新设计的一种积极可行的专利策略,具有较强的实践应用价值。随着专利规避技术的日趋成熟,对于专利群的规避和专利组合设计的研究会越发受到重视,将TRIZ理论与其他创新设计方法相结合,也将进一步促进专利规避设计的发展。     

Automating the United States Patent and Trademark Office: A plan for the 1990s

To carry out its mission, the United States Patent and Trademark Office processes and examines over 100 000 patent and 60 000 trademark applications annually. The already large body of information against which those applications must be compared is growing rapidly. Since the files are paper and loosely assembled to facilitate searching, their integrity is degrading steadily because of lost or misfiled documents. These factors threaten to compromise the quality, even the viability, of the patent grant and the trademark registration.A cost-effective and technologically reliable alternative to this paper-oriented system is clearly needed. During the past two years, the USPTO has undertaken a major research and planning effort to develop a more efficient process through the use of computer technology. This article highlights the major aspects of a long-range strategy to achieve the goal of a fully automated patent and trademark operation by the year 1990.     

The technical information provided by the European Patent Office

The search documentation of the European Patent Office at the Hague is essentially used in view of the tasks carried out within the framework of the European Patent Convention and the PCT and also for the preparation of search reports with respect to national applications filed in France, The Netherlands, Switzerland and Turkey. Moreover the general public can indirectly benefit from this search documentation through the standard or special search services. The standard searches are carried out on the basis of granted patents or patent applications (published or not) in compliance with the guidelines established for the European searches; the standard search report is identical to the European search report. The special services of the EPO encompass searches on: the state of the art, infringement, inventories, monographs, designed to respond to a great variety of needs.In the near future, the EPO will provide a direct access to its technical information through EURONET.