Information from Patents

Patents

What is a Patent?

Patents are a form of intellectual property. Intellectual property has been defined by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in the Stockholm treaty, 1968, as "all legal rights resulting from intellectual activity in the industrial, literary or artistic fields".
A patent is a statutory protection for a term of years (generally a maximum of 20) for a technical concept, defined by a statement known as a patent claim. A patent can be regarded as a contract between the state and the patentee (applicant or inventor) by which a monopoly is granted, for a number of years, in return for disclosing all the details of the invention. The term monopoly means, in this context, that no one except the applicant can exploit the invention. The patent system encourages research and development in that it ensures a period of protection for commercial exploitation, in which research expenditure can be recovered.

Examples of Lithuanian Patents:
Lietuvos patentas Nr.LT 3248. Sukibusiu medziagu birumo atstatymo budas./A. Federavicius. - 1995.- Biul. Nr. 4.
SSSR AS No.1521176. Sposob opredelenija charakteristik tviordogo tela v processe jonnogo oblucenija./A. Ragauskas.- 1989.

In order to receive a "patent" for an application, this must meet several criteria:

Novelty: the invention must be new and not have become public knowledge. This means that the inventor must file the patent application before speaking about the invention in public, or publishing details in any format.
The invention must be capable of being manufactured or industrially reproduced.
The invention must involve an appreciable inventive step and not simply a trivial or predictable improvement of something already in existence or described in the published literature.
It must not be contrary to morality or public order. An example of an illegal patent application would be the design of a mantrap.
The patent description must be sufficiently detailed and clear so that a person with skills in the appropriate subject field can carry out or reconstruct the invention.

Procedure for Obtaining a Patent

The basic procedure of applying for patents is regulated by the Paris Convention for the Production of Industrial Property of 1883. Patenting procedures have become increasingly standardised in the various international patent offices. Obtaining a patent is quite a lengthy and complicated business, since the application describing the invention has to be carefully examined at an official patent office. The procedure for examining patent applications varies from country to country.

An applicant for a patent draws up a description of the invention, called the patent specification. An applicant often needs the help of a patent agent or attorney to produce the specification. This consists of a description, drawings and the claims to the monopoly requested. The application is filed at a patent office (usually the inventor´s national patent office). The date on which this receipt is recorded is the official priority date for the invention. The procedure for examining pattern applications varies from country to county. The following idescribes the procedure for international (PCT) and European (EPC) applications. The patent office will then carry out a preliminary examination, to see if the application has been set out correctly, and a search to see whether any information relevant to the invention has already been published. The application is then published together with the search report. The applicant can then decide whether or not to request examination for patentability - substantive examination. At this point objections may be made from interested parties. If the application is accepted, it is now published again, if necessary in modified form. Fees are payable at each stage. Note that in most national patent systems the novelty search and the substantive examination steps are combined in one single step. A patent for an invention must be applied for in each country in which protection is sought. These applications must be filed within 12 months of the priority date.

Layout of Patents

The patent specification consists of the following:

Heading/bibliographical data - this contains details such as the Application country number, Priority number, Date of filing, Applicant, Inventor, Representative etc. An abstract (written by the applicant) and, where necessary, drawings are usually included.
Opening Statement
Background information - description of current state of the art.
Problem - the nature of the technical problem.
Invention - main description, explaining the inventive step and how it works, with reference to any illustrations.
Claims - legal aspects of the monopoly.
Drawings
Search report - this will include as a minimum a list of patents or other documents which describe the state of the art.

The arrangement of these items differs from country to country.

Searching for Patent Information

Patents are an important (and often under utilised) source of information.
Searching for patent information is a specialised skill. Many industrial companies employ patent engineers and/or patent lawyers to work on questions of patent awareness, searching and applications. It is also possible to get information searches carried out at national and regional patent offices and at a number of university libraries.

Primary information sources

All countries which have signed the Paris Convention are required to publish an official periodical journal providing details of patents granted and registered trademarks. These journals are usually published weekly. Examples are:

France : Bulletin Officiel de la propriété industriel
Germany : Patentblatt
Spain : Boletin oficial de la propriedad industrial
Sweden : Svensk Patenttidning / Swedish Patent Gazette
United Kingdom : Official Journal Patents
United States : Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office (published twice weekly)
Japan : Kokai Tokkyo Koho (Patent Application Gazette); Kokai Jituyo Shin An Koho (Utility Model Application Gazette); Jitsyo Shin An Koho (Utility Model Gazette)
Lithuania : The Official Gazette of the State Patent Bureau of the Republic of Lithuania (contains recordings in the Registers of Patents, Industial Designs, |Trademark and Service Marks, Firm Names of the Republic of Lithuania)

The European Patent Office publishes a weekly European Patent Bulletin, in two parts:

I. Published European patent applications and international applications
II. Granted patents

The European Patent Office also produce a list of where to find patent information on the internet which includes servers of other patent offices, database hosts which offer patent databases and patent information providers.
A useful source of US patents is the IBM Patent server where you can view US patents, from 1971 onwards, free of charge.
The official announcement service of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is the PCT Gazette: Gazette of International Patent Applications. 1978 - (published twice weekly). Every second issue of the PCT Gazette is devoted to abstracts of PCT applications. You can find out more from the World Intellectual Property Organization home page.

Secondary information sources

Two organisations are particularly important in the field of patent information provision:

Derwent Publications who provide the World Patents Index (WPI) available as an online database from 1976. This covers patents from some 30 countries. English language abstracts are provided for many of these countries and this simplifies keyword subject searching.
EPIDOS-INPADOC - the International Patent Documentation Center (Inpadoc) was established in Vienna in 1972. At the beginning of 1991 Inpadoc became part of the European Patent Office becoming part of the new Epidos (European Patent Information and Documentation Systems). EPIDOS is a directorate of the European Patent Office and is based in Vienna. It holds bibliographical data from over 50 countries on the INPADOC database. Microfiche indexes are produced from this data. No abstracts are provided, but titles in non-roman alphabets are given in English.
Searching can be carried out by name - of a person, or a company. Subject searching is carried out either by keyword searching or by means of the classification codes of the International Patent Classification (IPC) used by patent offices throughout the world. The first edition of the IPC was published in 1968. It should be noted that the IPC was developed first and foremost for use by patent examiners. It is, therefore, designed to cover the inventive aspects of a patent rather than the context in which it might be used.

Online Patent Databases

Several online hosts offer a variety of patent databases. The most important hosts for patent databases are

The most important general patent databases are:

INPADOC, INPANEW, INPAMONITOR and LEGSTAT produced by EPIDOS and covering information from 56 patenting authorities. Available on DIALOG, ORBIT and STN.

Derwent WORLD PATENTS INDEX (WPI) - produced by Derwent Publications - covers 31 issuing authorities. The most recent part of the database is known as World Patents Index Latest (WPI/L). Available on DIALOG, ORBIT and STN.

There are a number of files covering patents from individual countries:

DATABASE                                                ONLINE HOST

CHINAPATS                                               ORBIT
CHINESE PATENT ABSTRACTS IN ENGLISH                     DIALOG
CLAIMS - US patents from 1950 onwards                   DIALOG, ORBIT, STN
EPAT - European Patents Office patents,                 QUESTEL
published applications and Euro-PCT applications 
FPAT - French patents since 1969                        QUESTEL
ITALPAT - Italian patent applications and Italian       ESA-IRS
utility, design and applications models from 1983
JAPIO - Japanese patents applications from 1976         ORBIT
PATDPA - German patents since 1968                      STN
PATGRAPH -subfile for graphics                          STN
US PATENTS - produced by Derwent - front page           ORBIT
information on US patents since 1971.

Patents Databases on CD-ROM

A number of patent databases are available on compact discs - CD-ROM.

The European Patent Office produce several series of CD-ROMs which contain the full text of the patents together with drawings. The following are available:

The European Patent Convention applications and grants
Patent Cooperation Treaty applications

Series covering the patents of the individual national members of the EPC are also either in existence (DK,GB,DE,FR and IT) or are planned for production.

Other patent CD-ROM databases include:

ACCESS
Bibliographic information plus abstracts on EPO applications. Updated quarterly. Available from Chadwyck-Healey or the EPO.
BULLETIN
Bibliographic and status information on EPO patents. Updated quarterly. Available from Chadwyck-Healey or the EPO.
FIRST
Full text and drawings of PCT and EPO front pages from 1988 onwards. Each disc contains some 12 000 records. Updated five times annually. Available from Chadwyck-Healey or the EPO.
APS
Bibliographic information plus abstracts of US patents, designs, plants, etc. from 1969 onwards. Current disk updated monthly. Available from Chadwyck-Healey.
CASSIS
Bibliographic information on US patents, designs, plants, etc. Updated three times annually. Available from MicroInfo.
CLAIMS
Bibliographic information on US chemical patents from 1950 and mechanic/electrical patents from 1963. Updated bimonthly. Available from Silver Platter.
IPC:CLASS
2rd, 4th, and 5th editions of the International Patent Classification (IPC) plus catchword indexes and concordances. Available from WIPO.

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