European Patent Office

Patent searching in espacenet

Scitech Patent Art Services Pvt. LtdHyderabad

• 1958 Treaty of Rome (Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany)- 1) Euratom Treaty 2) European Community

• 1960 Idea of a European Patent • 1973 Convention signed • 1977 European Patent Office• Established in 1977 by the European Patent Convention (EPC) with the aim of

A bit of history: a European idea

• Established in 1977 by the European Patent Convention (EPC) with the aim of creating a centralized patent application and grant system on behalf of all contracting states, the EPO's mission is to support innovation, competitiveness and economic growth for the benefit of the citizens of Europe. As of January 2009, the EPC has effect in 37 European countries, including all European Union member states

• Recently Albania joined in the European Patent Organization on 1 may 2010

EPO Member States

Searches can be performed in the worldwide, European (EP) and WIPO (PCT) databases. Each search mask contains a number of search fields corresponding to the type of data that can be searched.You can choose between:v Quick search, which allows you to search for keywords in the title/abstract or for a person/organization (applicant and/or inventor)v Advanced search, which enables you to search in the bibliographic data , including the abstract when availablev Number search, which allows you to retrieve a specific publication number, application number, priority number with or without country code prefix or NPL reference numberYou can enter a maximum of four search terms per field and a total of 21 search terms per mass

Basic search tips

Boolean operators

Operators Use Example

ORTo increase your chances of finding a patent that matches your query, you can use the OR operator in combination with

synonyms or related termsFibrin OR Biopesticide

ANDYou can narrow down a search by combining search terms

using the AND operatorFibrin AND Biopesticide

NOTIf you use a term with more than one meaning, you may

generate a result list containing patents that are not relevant to your search, even though they match the query term.

Fibrin NOT Biopesticide

TruncationTo extend your search, you can use truncation symbols (wildcards) to include, for example, the plural form of a word, or alternative spellings.There are three different wildcard characters available:

* - stands for a string of characters of any lengthExample: Encaps* means Encapsule or encapsulate or encapsulation or encapsulated

? - stands for zero or one characterExample: Biopesticide?Means Biopesticide or Biopesticides

# - stands for exactly one characterExample: polymeri#ation means polymerization or polymerisation

Nested queries If you want to nest query terms within other query terms, you must use parentheses to specify the order in which search If you want to nest query terms within other query terms, you must use parentheses to specify the order in which search terms and operators should be interpreted. Information within parentheses is read first, then information outside parentheses is read next. The following example illustrates this: When you enter (mouse OR rat) AND trap in the title /abstract field, the search engine will retrieve patents containing the word mouse or the word rat together with the word trap in the title or abstract.

Default operatorsYou can enter your search terms without having to type in the default operators AND or OR as the system automatically uses the correct operator within the following fields:vFor the title and abstract fields, the default operator is ANDvFor the publication number, publication date, application number and priority number fields, the default operator is ORvFor the inventor and applicant fields, the default operator is ANDvFor the ECLA and IPC fields, the default operator is ANDvThe mandatory operator for combining 2 or more input fields is AND

Patent Searching in esp@cenet

The following searches are used to find the patents and patent information

q Quick Search

q Advanced Searchq Advanced Search

q Classification Search

q Number Search

q Legal status, Event history and Citations (Register Plus)

q Smart Search

Quick Search

Source link: http://ep.espacenet.com/quickSearch?locale=en_EP

153 patents found

Click on Title to

view patent details

Gene? and Transition?

Advanced Search•Maximum of 10 search terms per field

•Maximum of 21 search terms and 20 operators per mask

Source Link: http://ep.espacenet.com/advancedSearch?locale=en_V3

203 patents found

Click on Title to view Bibliographic data

European Classification (ECLA)

The ECLA classification system is an extension of the International Patent Classification (IPC). It is however more precise, having twice as many entries (ECLA: 140 000; IPC: 70 000).

ECLA format: B65D81/20B2AIPC format: B65D81/20

European Classification system is dynamic and updated on a weekly basis

Determining classification(s) using keywords

Source Link: http://v3.espacenet.com/eclasrch?locale=en_V3

Determining classification(s) for keywords

European classification (ECLA) search

72 patents found

European classification search

Numbers search in espacenet

v Publication number: CC and 1 to 12 digits Number (Ex: US7278548, WO2007030511)

v Priority number: CCYYYY and maximum seven digits: (GB19958026)

v Application number: CCYYYY and maximum seven digits (Ex. GB19950008026)

v NPL reference number: XP and maximum seven digits (Ex. XP1, XP000123456)

New EP applications are normally added to the EP database every Wednesday (after 14.00 hrs)

• Maximum of 10 search terms per field

• Maximum of 21 search terms and 20 operators per mask

EP documents published in the last two years

Worldwide database containing almost 60 million documents

WIPO documents published in the last two years

Number search

Click on this link to open the document

Legal status, Event history and citations

Legal status, Event history and citations

What can you find in Register Plus?

Register Plus is divided into a number of different sections

About this File Contains bibliographic and procedural status information, plus the file history.

Legal Status Shows the most important legal events in the European procedure, plus any information available to us on the fate of the European patent once it passes in the responsibility of the designated states following grant.

Event History Lists events for the current file in chronological order.

Citations List of documents found during the patentability search for the European patent application or cited by the applicant.

Patent Family Displays a list of patent documents from around the world that are linked to the European patent application by a common priority number.

All Documents Shows a complete list of the contents of the file at the EPO, together with links that open each document in the viewer.

Smart Search

Field identifier

Description Examples

in inventor in=smith

pa applicant pa=siemens

ti title ti="mouse trap"

ab abstract ab="mouse trap"

pr priority number pr=ep20050104792

Field identifier

Description Examples

cnipc core and additional information

cn=A63B49/02

aiipc advanced and invention information

ai= A63B49/08

anipc advanced and additional information

an=A63B49/08

Field Identifiers

The following table gives an overview of the field identifiers available in Smart Search and their definition with an example of how to use them:

pr priority number pr=ep20050104792

pn publication number pn=ep1000000

ap application number ap=jp19890234567

pd publication datepd=20080107 OR pd="07/01/2008" OR pd=07/01/2008

ct citation/ cited document ct=ep1000000

ec european classification ec="A61K31/13"

icinternational classification

ic=A63B49/08

ci

ipc core and invention information ci=A63B49/02

additional information

ia inventor and applicantia=Apple OR ia="Ries klaus"

ta title and abstractta="laser printer"

txttitle, abstract, inventor and applicant

txt=microscope lens

numapplication, publication and priority number

num=ep1000000

c ci and cn c=A63B49/02

a ai and an a=A63B49/08

ipc ic and c and a ipc=A63B49/08

cl ipc and ec cl=C10J3

Operators in Smart Search • Boolean operatorsAND, OR, NOT are allowed. The default operator is AND. Left has precedence over right. No operator has precedence by default.

• Proximity operators

Example: mouse prox/distance<3 trap The system will find patents where the words mouse and trap are less than three words apart in the TXT identifier and in the order shown.

Example: mouse prox/unit=sentence trap The system will find patents where the words mouse and trap happen to be in the same sentence in the TXT identifier.

Example: mouse prox/unit=paragraph trap The system will find patents where the words mouse and trap happen to be in the same paragraph in the TXT identifier.

Example: ia=Apple prox/ordered ia=Corp The system will retrieve documents having Apple Corp but not Corp Apple.

• Comparison operators The terms to be searched within a specific field identifier should be surrounded by quotation marks. The terms to be searched within a specific field identifier should be surrounded by quotation marks. • = Equal to This is the default relation. e.g. pa=siemens • all All terms entered within quotes will be found within the field identifier, although perhaps not in the order in which they appear. e.g. ti all "paint brush hair" • any Any of the terms entered within quotes will be retrieved within the field identifier. e.g. ti any "motor engine"

• Operators which are only valid for the publication date field identifier • within e.g. pd within "2005 2006" OR pd within "2005, 2006". • >= Greater than or equal to e.g. pd >=2005 will retrieve documents having a publication date higher than or equal to 2005. • <= Less than or equal to e.g. pd <=2005 will retrieve documents having a publication date less than or equal to 2005.

CountryKind Code

Type of Document

European Patent Office (EPO)

A1 APPLICATION PUBLISHED WITH SEARCH REPORT

A2 APPLICATION PUBLISHED WITHOUT SEARCH REPORT

A3 SEARCH REPORT

A4 SUPPLEMENTARY SEARCH REPORT

A8 MODIFIED FIRST PAGEEuropean Patent Office (EPO) (EP) A9 MODIFIED COMPLETE SPECIFICATION

B1 PATENT

B2 PATENT AFTER MODIFICATION

B3 AFTER LIMITATION PROCEDURE

B8 MODIFIED FIRST PAGE GRANTED PATENT

B9 CORRECTED COMPLETE GRANTED PATENT

Useful Links:http://www.european-patent-office.org/index.en.php (Home page)

http://www.european-patent-office.org/_new_patinfo_prod/index.en.php

(Patent information)

http://www.european-patent-office.org/_new_sengines/index.en.php

(Search engines and site index)

http://www.espacenet.com/info/index.en.htm (Introduction to the database)

http://ep.espacenet.com/ (Patent search page)

http://ep.espacenet.com/quickSearch?locale=en_EP (Quick search)http://ep.espacenet.com/quickSearch?locale=en_EP (Quick search)

http://ep.espacenet.com/advancedSearch?locale=en_EP (Advanced search)

http://ep.espacenet.com/numberSearch?locale=en_EP (Number search)

http://v3.espacenet.com/eclasrch?CY=ep&LG=en (Classification search)

http://patentinfo.european-patent-office.org/prod_serv/legal/index.en.php (Legal information)

http://www.epoline.org/portal/public (Epoline: Register Plus)

http://www.european-patent-office.org/wbt/espacenet/assistant.php?nStartIndex=0&CY=EP&LG=en (Guided tour)

esp@cenet® has the following search limitations:v Search terms in the abstract must be in EnglishvWhen combining search fields the default operator is AND and cannot be changedv Truncation limitationsv Apostrophes, slashes and hyphens cannot be used. Please use blanks insteadv Not all documents have English abstracts, titles, European classification or International classifications (check coverage)v Different search mask depending on the database you choose to search in

Limitations

v Different search mask depending on the database you choose to search inv Maximum of 100000 results per query but only 500 matching documents will be listedv EP and WO documents with a maximum of 500 pages can be downloaded in one gov Other patent documents with a maximum of 250 pages can be downloaded in one gov Maximum of 100 documents stored in "my patents list" for one yearv It is not possible to store XP documents in "my patents list"v It is not possible to retrieve an XP document by the name of the author or to limit a search to XP documents onlyv No statistical analysis possible. Please have a look at the Annual report and at the following page.v No search history provided

??Questions

21