Landon IP has launched a web page Intellogist, a free online tool that provides the intellectual property (IP) community with a revolutionary resource for finding objective information about patent searching tools and sharing best practices. Intellogist provides the informaton about

·        Search System Reports: See detailed information on search systems

·        Best Practices in Prior Art Searching: Collaborate on best practices for prior art searching

·        Quick Table Comparisons: Quickly compare patent search systems

·        Resource Finder: Find prior art resources by technical field

·        Interactive Patent Coverage Map: Find patent search systems by clicking on a map

The website is also having the detailed comparison of database scope, features, and limitations of following patent search databases:

·        Delphion

·        EAST

·        Esp@cenet

·        FreePatentsOnline

·        Google Patent Search

·        MicroPatent PatentWeb

·        PatAnalyst

·        PatBase

·        PatBase Express

·        Patent Analysis Search System

·        Patent Lens

·        QPAT

·        Qweb

·        SumoBrain

·        SureChem

·        Surf-IP

·        Thomson Innovation

·        TotalPatent

·        WIPS Global

Data is reproduced from EPO website. On 2 February 2009 the Indian government granted access to its Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), a unique database that houses the country’s traditional medical wisdom, to examiners at the European Patent Office (EPO).

EPO examiners will use the extensive database to prevent attempts at patenting existing traditional knowledge, a practice described as “bio-piracy”.

The co-operation between India and the EPO comes at a time when many countries are struggling to protect traditional and respected knowledge against exploitation, primarily in the pharmaceutical sector….

A unique encyclopaedia: The TKDL is the result of a US$ 2 million joint project between five Indian government organisations, including the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the National Institute of Science Communication and Informative Resources (NISCAIR).

Under the direction of Vinod Kumar Gupta, the head of NISCAIR, more than 150 experts in traditional medicine, law and computer science spent the past ten years arranging and classifying the TKDL.

Highlights of the vast database include:

§  54 authoritative textbooks on ayurvedic medicine

§  Nearly 150,000 ayurvedic, unani and siddha medicines

§  Over 1,500 physical exercises and postures in yoga, more than 5,000 years old.

Click here to read full article. 

The IPVision Patent Analytics provides the patent data mining and mapping tool (Find the Trees – See the Forest™) which enables to analyze patent portfolios, technologies and innovations, provide new competitive intelligence insights, enable companies to align intellectual property management with strategic objectives. The Map Analysis Features highlight important data on the map such as:

·        Patent Cluster Maps™: show the patents grouped by the Selected Attribute- e.g., USTPO Class, By First Assignee, By First Named Inventor, or By Agent. This helps you investigate inventors, companies and technologies.

·        Patent Family Maps™: show applications (provisional and non-provisional), continuations, continuations-in-part, divisionals, abandoned applications and related international filings.

·        Visual Citation – Seminal Patents™: Which patents on the map are Seminal Patents – i.e., patents that have been cited by more than 20 other patents. In the Pro Version these patents are highlighted on the map.

·        Litigation Analysis™: Which patents on the Map have changed ownership?

·        Red Flag – Expired Patents Due to Non-Payment™: Highlighted patents have expired due to non-payment of USPTO maintenance fees, as per USPTO data.

·        Red Flag – Expired Patents Due to Non-Payment™: Highlighted patents have expired due to non-payment of USPTO maintenance fees, as per USPTO data.

·        Orphan Analysis™: Highlighted patents by color group are Orphan Patents and Cluster Patents that have common inventors.

The sample analysis is available at link: Find the Trees – See the Forest™ 

Innography provides excellent visualization and collaboration analytics software platform.

Innography’s integrated IP research platform enhances the patent research process by enabling you to quickly and easily discover, determine and derive the critical details necessary for facilitating strategic decision making. The applications of the platform are as follows:

·        Trend analysis

·        Patent disclosure and prior art research

·        Emerging business evaluation

·        Competitive intelligence

·        M&A due diligence

·        Infringement / Invalidation discovery  

Patents.com a new patent search database It provides the searching of US and European Patents. There are four search options:

·        Simple Search

·        Advanced Search

·        Expert Search

·        Bulk Search

The database has some other cool features.

·        Clustering of the searched patents relevant buckets.

·        Browsing of Patents by Inventor name. (This feature helps in distinguish similar names)

·        Browsing of Patents by Company name. (Easy to identify the similar names)

·        Provide users to register and various user account features as well as the ability to create profiles, claim patents you are associated with and connect with other Patents Community members.

Patent Visualization Tool

XLUS is web-based software that can visualize massive numbers of patent searches and analysis results in landscape thememap.

In order to illustrate the similarity and technological relationships between patents, XLUS produces a radar chart in addition to an ordinal patent list.

XLUS’s core technologies consist of natural language processing, data informatics, visualization and easy expression, and IP knowledge and analysis. XLUS has great potential to improve search productivity for planning of development strategies, as well as patent acquisition strategies.

• Aport! the search engine: One of the more powerful Russian search engines, claiming to index over 1.7 million Russian Web pages
• Cross simple query: Croatian WWW search engine.
• EISIL electronic information system for international law: Electronic information system for International Law
• Google
• IAndex poiskovaia sistema dlia vsekh: A full-text search engine that indexes Russian Web pages
• Katalog pestre stranky internetu: Slovak search engine and Web directory
• Malaysia search : Searchable links to information on Malaysia including news, business and the arts
• Mat’Kurja: Slovenian search engine and Web directory
• Meta Ukraine: Ukrianian search engine and Web directory
• Rambler informatsionno-poiskovaia sistema: Search engine also has a directory of the top 20 sites in each subject category
• Scirus for scientific information only: Scirus is the most comprehensive science-specific search engine on the Internet. Driven by the latest search engine technology, Scirus searches over 200 million science-specific Web pages
• Search Latvian Web: Search engine for servers in Latvia
• Seznam: Search engine for Web resources from and about the Czech Republic. Also includes a directory of links arranged by subject hierarchy
• Superzoznam: Slovak web directory and search engine
• SZM: Slovak search engine and Web directory
• Trazi.com: Bosnian search engine and web directory
• Uzdroje.cz: Czech search engine and Web directory
• Wirtualna Polska: Portal to web resources from and about Poland provides links organized by subjects
• Wow! : Polish Web directory and search engine
• Yahoo! : Links to political science information on the World Wide Web
• YuSearch.com: Yugoslav Web directory and search engine. In English
• Zoznam: Slovak search engine and Web directory
• Flickr: Image search
• Search Europe: http://www.searcheurope.com/
• Fast Search: http://www.alltheweb.com/
• Web Crawler: http://www.webcrawler.com/
• Meta Crawler: http://www.metacrawler.com/
• Lycos: http://www.lycos.com/
• AltaVista: http://www.altavista.com/
• Excite: http://www.excite.com/
• MSN: www.msn.com

A blog has published the list of websites and software’s for downloading the patent copies freely and also on subscription basis.

a.   http://www.pat2pdf.com.  PDF.  Coverage:  US and European patents, US patent applications.  Cost:  varies, but all patent documents below USPN 1,000,000 are free.

b.   http://www.pat2pdf.org.  PDF.  Coverage:  All issued US Patents.  Search interface:  patent number.  Can search multiple patent numbers at once.  Cost:  FREE.

c.   http://www.freepatentsonline.com.  PDF or TIFF.  Coverage:  US patents published by the USPTO since patent number 4,000,000.  Search interface:  boolean or patent number.  Cost:  FREE.

d.   http://patents.oncloud8.com/.  PDF.  Coverage:  US and European patents.  Can download multiple patents as once. Search interface:  boolean or patent number.  Cost:  $0.25 per patent. Nor registration or minimum order required.

e.   http://ofi.epoline.org/view/GetDossier?dosnum=&pubnum=&lang=EN.  Download PDF copies of PCT/EPO patents directly here.

f.   Patent Fetcher – offers patent publications in PDF format. Free U.S. patents and applications at http://free.patentfetcher.com (daily limit of 10 PDFs for free downloads). Foreign patent publications (EP, WO, DE, JP, etc.) as well as faster and unlimited downloads of U.S. patents and applications available from http://www.patentfetcher.com for $0.65 each.  All-you-can-eat subscriptions available too.

g.  PatentGopher.  PDFs that are e-mailed to you.  Coverage:  US Patents, US Patent Applications, and many foreign patents.  Cost:  Patents of 10 pages or less will be delivered for just US$1, additional pages cost ten cents each.  [via Promote the Progress blog]

h.  Asitri (M.I.T.).  Search for a patent by patent number, get web page with said patent’s abstract and basic information, along with abstract and basic information of its references, all with links to download copies of said patents by PDFs.  Interesting site.  Cost:  FREE.  [via Navigating the Patent Maze blog]

i.   Google.  Ok, so it won’t get you a PDF or TIFF copy of the patent, but did you know that you can use Google to go directly to an issued US patent via the USPTO database?  Example:  Google search for patent 6,698,104 and click on “Look up patent 6698104 in the US Patent Database”.  I previously blogged about this (and all of the other Google number searches) here.

j.  GetThePatent.  Files in “CPC” compressed format viewable in a free CPCLite viewer.  Cost:  $0.50 per patent.   Patents from the USPTO, EPO,  WIPO (PCT), Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Spain, and Switzerland.

k.  PatentMatic.  Free.  Enter patent number and it gives you a summary page with abstract and related patents and a link to download a PDF copy of the patent.  Coverage:  “European (EP), United States (US), ‘World’ (PCT/WO) and Japanese (JP) patents.

l.  PDFpatents.com.  Free (slow) or Register and pay as you go ($1/each or cheaper).

m.  BrainDex.  PDF copies.  Free.  US, PCT, EPO, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Russia, Austria and others.

n.  PatentReader.  Free.  PDF.  US-only.  Allows you to download multiple patent numbers at one time.

o.  One reader points out that “For some little while now esp@cenet (http://ep.espacenet.com/) has allowed downloading of full patent copies. When you have found the patent you want, click on the ‘original document’ tab, and you get an option ’save full document’ in red.”

p.  iFdIP  “Search by just entering number and country code and get all available document types having said number. Download documents for free in PDF or several documents in ZIP. Coverage: world wide.”

q.  ClearlyUnderstood.  Free. US Patents and Published US Patent Applications.  After registering, multiple patents or published patent applications may by requested at the same time.  The PDF is provided with no extraneous text or marking placed on the copies.

II.  Programs/Plug-Ins

a.  PAT2PDF.  If you don’t mind installing a “Linux-like environment for Windows” and doing some tinkering, you can configure a FREE package for downloading copies of patents to your computer using Canadian attorney Peter Eliopoulos’ instructions.  I have tried it and it does work.  Did I mention the word FREE?

b.  GETIPDL.  (http://www.ujihara.jp/GetIPDL/en/).  PDF, TIFF, MS WORD.  “GetIPDL downloads patent documents from JPO, USPTO, esp@cenet, DEPATISnet and other free patent document delivery sites. It can download texts and images. You can automatically get documents from the national IP servers in AU, CA, CN, DE, EP, JP, TH, US, WO from the official IP servers. Of course, it works to get the other region’s documents. And more, so GetIPDL supports automatic computer translation site of Patent & Utility Model Gazette DB in JPO, you can read recent Japanese patent documents in English from GetIPDL.  Cost:  $89.00.  This is the program I use.

c.  IPDISCOVER (http://www.ipdiscover.com).  IP-Discover has three main components (search, retrieve and browse).  Under search you can search the Internet using an integrated browser (IE?) window (patent searching (dropdown links to all of the various USPTO and EPO search pages) as well as, search engines, patent classification manuals and foreign patent offices).  Under retrieve, you can download copies of all of the patents you found in your search.  Under browse, you can view (within the browser) what you downloaded (including storing and organizing your old patent searches.  An excellent tool (if I didn’t already own a copy of GETIPDL…I might buy this one).  Cost:  $175.00 (you can demo for free an educational “lite” version of the software, the lite version can be used for free by students and non-profits).

d.  Accel ViewTIFF (http://www.acordex.com/browseProd/VTplugin.html).  A TIFF viewer plug-in that “will print or save entire documents in one operation without the need to manually retrieve and print/save each page.  Accel ViewTIFF now automatically detects page numbers in file names or in CGI query strings and presents page controls for multipage operations with TIFF documents stored as separate pages.”  Cost:  $49.  Windows and Mac.  Works well with the USPTO site…if you use a TIFF view with the USPTO site, this one might a great option for you (instead of pasting patent numbers into a separate program).  Of course the end product is a multi-page TIFF file…you could use a “print to PDF” printer driver to convert it to PDF if you really want a PDF.  15 day free trial.

e.  freePat™ 0.81 for Windows.  From Peter Eliopoulos (Eliopoulous Intellectual Property Law – Canada) comes this free Windows program that can download US patents/applications, Canadian patents/application, European patents/applications, PCT applications, GB, FR and DE patents/applications to your computer as a single PDF file at no charge.  ~7MB file.

f.  PatentPleeze.  Worldwide patents, text and images together.  21 day trial.  $45.

g.  PatSee (formerly known as Lattice).  Three versions -  Demo, Lite and Pro.  More information including countries covered (looks like all on-line countries’ patent offices).  Cost:  £250.00 for 1 year, £400.00 for 2 years.  30 day demo available.

h.  ipMAGNET.  Patents from USPTO, ESP@CENET, DEPATIS and CIPO.  Cost $79.95+/yr.

i.   PatentGrabber [Mac Classic, Mac OS X and Windows].  Shareware ($20).  PDF or TIFF.  U.S. patents and published applications, European patents and published applications, and PCT published applications.  [Via 271patent]

j.  The BTCI Patent Toolbar Version 2.2.  A plug-in for both Windows Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer.  USPTO, EPO, WIPO/WO PCT, Japanese patent abstracts, and European country patents (United Kingdom, France, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hellenic Republic, Luxembourg, Monaco, Slovenia, etc.).  It costs $99.  A 15 day free trial software is available.  The software can be installed via this LINK.  Contact BTCI@cox.net if you want more info before installing.

k.   PatentHunter.  Free trial version.  Subscription basis.  US version $69, International version $99.  PDF and HTML.  Seems to be a comprehensive searching program (not just a patent downloader).

l.  PatentOrder.  Patents: EPO, USPTO, DEPATISNET (“this German Patent Office service covers a variety of countries”), Canada, Australia, France, Spain, others. Single PDF via e-mail.  Free trial.   Price unknown.

m.  PatentPapers.com.  PDFs of US patents.  Two products, Patent Reader (free) and PatPDF ($59.95).

n.  “PatentVue (www.nfovea.com) is a USPTO/EPO Patent Search and Download application.  It offers an enhanced keyword search (boolean, multiple terms, date-based, etc), bulk patent number search/download, saved searches, delta-searches (patents and applications since the last time a search was run), local patent library facility, and easy interactive drill-down access to HTML versions of patents during the search process.  A free 30-day demo version is available from Cnet at www.download.com.  The demo version limits you to 5 Patent PDF downloads per day.  It can be upgraded to the full version to allow unlimited patent downloads for US $199.99.  PatentVue runs under W98/Win2000/WinXP and requires the Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 and Adobe Acrobat Reader.”

o.   PATmonitor. PDF or TIFF.  Coverage: USPTO, Esp@cenet®, epoline®, INPADOC, JPO, DEPATISnet, DPMApublikationen, DPINFO, and SIPO.  30-day free trial. Distributed in the US by LegalStar (maker of “IP LegalForm” and other IP software).  Cost:  $495 annual single user license fee or $1495 10 user annual license fee.   

p.  Patent Search Software.  Via Indian patent firm Parker & Parker.  Stand alone program.  Free.  Allows you to search patents from the USPTO Issued and Published Patents, and EUROPEAN Patents Database…by entering one word in any of the field of software you can search in all three places.  Pretty nice program.

q.  “WizPatent.  With an Outlook like interface, this easy to use desktop application has more functionalities than any of the other patent download software.  Search USPTO, ESPACE, WIPO, Japan databases for patents and download the Text, PDF for FREE.  Robust patent document management tools.  Allows you to add annotations to your patent collections.  Claims Analysis. Links to PAIR. Search your patent collection. Group by Inventors, Assignee, Year etc..  $675/yr.”

r.  BrainDex Patent Downloader.  Gives you the ability to “right-click” on a patent number and download the corresponding PDF patent copy.  $39.95.  Free trial available.

India is one of the leading destinations for business hubs. A lot of companies are protecting their Intellectual Property (patent) in India.  Indian Patent Office has made the Patent Database public to view the Patents. The searching of Indian Patents is very restrictive as I have posted about it in another post.  The patent office has tried to make the full text of Indian patents available to public free of cost. This facility is available to the patent number from 1 – 1,69,500 (patent applications filed and accepted for grant mostly prior to 1992).

Regrettably till date, the full texts of recent patents are not available to public freely. These can only be obtained from Indian Patent Office by payment basis.

Link:

http://ipindia.nic.in/

http://pfc.org.in/fac/fac.htm

Hubmed is an alternative website for mining PubMed database. It’s worth to try once. The features of the databases are as follows:

• Daily updates of search results via web feeds.
• Quick access to searches with a Firefox search plugin or a HubMed bookmarklet (drag to your browser’s bookmarks toolbar).
• Export citations in RIS, BibTeX, RDF and MODS formats, or directly to RefWorks.
• Unzip HubMed’s import filter into Endnote’s Filters folder for direct import into Endnote, or install the RIS Export plugin for direct import into ProCite, RefMan and older versions of Endnote.
• Use the Citation Finder to convert reference lists from PDFs into search results.
• Create lists of closely related papers using Rank Relations, then visualise and browse clusters of related papers using TouchGraph (requires Java).
• Graph occurrences of keywords in published papers over time.
• Tag and store annotated metadata for articles of interest.

eTBLAST  is an alternative website for mining PubMed database. It’s worth to try once. The features of the databases are as follows:

• eTBLAST sorts our results by relevance, while PubMed sorts by date.
• eTBLAST save you the time and effort of creating a complicated query.
• eTBLAST let you iterate your search over several good papers to narrow your focus.
• eTBLAST provides you the full MEDLINE abstract in our results, and a link to the PubMed page.

The new upcoming features are USPTO (coming) and DrugBank (coming).

This absolutely free service is provided by the University of Texas SoutheTBLASTstern Medical Center. No registration necessary.