INPADOC

Last updated

INPADOC, which stands for International Patent Documentation, [1] [notes 1] is a freely available international patent database. It is produced and maintained by the European Patent Office (EPO). INPADOC developed a patent families classification, which groups together patent applications (and issued patents) originating from the same priority document(s). It also provides data about the legal status (pending, issued, abandoned, expired) for patent documents in many countries and for large time periods. Although INPADOC is not comprehensive, it keeps expanding the breadth and the depth of its coverage.

Contents

Historic timeline

The tabulated chronology of the database is as follows: [2]

1972. INPADOC was founded by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the government of Austria under an agreement on May 2, 1972. [3] The original database was offered to users in microfiche format.

1973. Patent Family Service (PFS) grouping was introduced, where all the documents belonging to a specific patent family were identified.

1978. Legal status information became available.

1981. INPADOC goes on-line.

1988. INPADOC officials claimed, that the database "covers more than 98 % of all patent documents published yearly worldwide and the total number of documents is more than 13 million." [4] Luxembourg had the largest temporal coverage going back to 1945.

1990. The database provided bibliographic information from 55 patent issuing authorities (73 in 2023) and the legal status service from 12.

1991. INPADOC was integrated into the European Patent Office (EPO) with the Principal Directorate Patent Information of the EPO having been located in Vienna, Austria since. [5] [6]

2003. The backlog of the legal status database was cleared up, and the physical storage of electronic records was established in The Hague.

2004. Ca. 130,000 bibliographic records from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore and Brunei covering years between 1990 and 2003 were added, albeit their availability was initially limited to CD-ROM format only.

2004. Patent data from Brazil and 19 Spanish-language countries were added.

2005. The database provided bibliographic information from 73 patent issuing authorities and the legal status service from 44.

2005. Several commercial database developers (e.g. Anacubis, Minesoft, PatentInformatics and Questel-Orbit) offered access to enhanced INPADOC data and search functionality for a fee.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Prior to 2014, it was the International Patent Documentation Center. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">European Patent Office</span> One of the two organs of the European Patent Organisation

The European Patent Office (EPO) is one of the two organs of the European Patent Organisation (EPOrg), the other being the Administrative Council. The EPO acts as executive body for the organisation while the Administrative Council acts as its supervisory body as well as, to a limited extent, its legislative body. The actual legislative power to revise the European Patent Convention lies with the Contracting States themselves when meeting at a Conference of the Contracting States.

The European Patent Organisation is a public international organisation created in 1977 by its contracting states to grant patents in Europe under the European Patent Convention (EPC) of 1973. The European Patent Organisation has its seat at Munich, Germany, and has administrative and financial autonomy. The organisation is independent from the European Union, and has as member states all 27 EU member states along with 12 other European states.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">European Patent Convention</span> International patent treaty

The European Patent Convention (EPC), also known as the Convention on the Grant of European Patents of 5 October 1973, is a multilateral treaty instituting the European Patent Organisation and providing an autonomous legal system according to which European patents are granted. The term European patent is used to refer to patents granted under the European Patent Convention. However, a European patent is not a unitary right, but a group of essentially independent nationally enforceable, nationally revocable patents, subject to central revocation or narrowing as a group pursuant to two types of unified, post-grant procedures: a time-limited opposition procedure, which can be initiated by any person except the patent proprietor, and limitation and revocation procedures, which can be initiated by the patent proprietor only.

Prior art is a concept in patent law used to determine the patentability of an invention, in particular whether an invention meets the novelty and the inventive step or non-obviousness criteria for patentability. In most systems of patent law, prior art is generally defined as anything that is made available, or disclosed, to the public that might be relevant to a patent's claim before the effective filing date of a patent application for an invention. However, notable differences exist in how prior art is specifically defined under different national, regional, and international patent systems.

The EPC 2000 or European Patent Convention 2000 is the version of the European Patent Convention (EPC) as revised by the Act Revising the Convention on the Grant of European Patents signed in Munich on November 29, 2000. On June 28, 2001, the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation adopted the final new text of the EPC 2000. The EPC 2000 entered into force on December 13, 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Applied Arts Vienna</span> Arts university in Vienna, Austria

The University of Applied Arts Vienna is an arts university and institution of higher education in Vienna, the capital of Austria. It has had university status since 1970.

Espacenet is a free online service for searching patents and patent applications. Espacenet was developed by the European Patent Office (EPO) together with the member states of the European Patent Organisation. Most member states have an Espacenet service in their national language, and access to the EPO's worldwide database, most of which is in English. In 2022, the Espacenet worldwide service claimed to have records on more than 140 million patent publications.

European patent law covers a range of legislations including national patent laws, the Strasbourg Convention of 1963, the European Patent Convention of 1973, and a number of European Union directives and regulations. For some states in Eastern Europe, the Eurasian Patent Convention applies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Declaration of Neutrality</span> 1955 Austrian law declaring the countrys permanent neutrality

The Declaration of Neutrality was a declaration by the Austrian Parliament declaring the country permanently neutral. It was enacted on 26 October 1955 as a constitutional act of parliament, i.e., as part of the Constitution of Austria.

epoline is a set of web-based computer programs and services enabling applicants, patentees and their representatives to file patent applications online before the European Patent Office (EPO), as well as to monitor the status of patent applications during their prosecution and patents during an opposition. The epoline products and services have been implemented and are maintained by the EPO, according to the Decision of the President of the EPO dated 29 October 2002.

The European Patent Register, also known as the Register of European Patents, is a public register kept by the European Patent Office (EPO). It contains legal information relating to published European patent applications and European patents granted under the European Patent Convention (EPC). The register notably provides the current legal status of European patent applications and patents, such as for instance "whether a patent application has been published, whether a patent has been granted, what the outcome of opposition proceedings was or whether a patent has been revoked".

The Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) is an Indian digital knowledge repository of the traditional knowledge, especially about medicinal plants and formulations used in Indian systems of medicine.

This is a list of legal terms relating to patents. A patent is not a right to practice or use the invention, but a territorial right to exclude others from commercially exploiting the invention, granted to an inventor or his successor in rights in exchange to a public disclosure of the invention.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Google Patents</span> Search engine from Google that indexes patents and patent applications

Google Patents is a search engine from Google that indexes patents and patent applications.

Patent Information News was a trilingual, quarterly magazine published by the Principal Directorate Patent Information of the European Patent Office (EPO), Vienna sub-office, Austria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grant procedure before the European Patent Office</span>

The grant procedure before the European Patent Office (EPO) is an ex parte, administrative procedure, which includes the filing of a European patent application, the examination of formalities, the establishment of a search report, the publication of the application, its substantive examination, and the grant of a patent, or the refusal of the application, in accordance with the legal provisions of the European Patent Convention (EPC). The grant procedure is carried out by the EPO under the supervision of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation. The patents granted in accordance with the EPC are called European patents.

The Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) is a patent classification system, which has been jointly developed by the European Patent Office (EPO) and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The CPC is substantially based on the previous European classification system (ECLA), which itself was a more specific and detailed version of the International Patent Classification (IPC) system.

<i>Bundesgesetzblatt</i> (Austria) Government gazette of Austria

The Bundesgesetzblatt für die Republik Österreich (BGBl.) is an official gazette in Austria for the announcement of federal laws, ministerial decrees, proclamations and pronouncements of the Chancellor, resolutions of the President as well as international treaties and other supranational law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cannabis in Austria</span> Use of cannabis in Austria

Cannabis in Austria is legal for scientific and medical usage, but illegal for recreational usage. Possession of small amounts for personal use was decriminalized in 2016. The sale of cannabis seeds and plants is legal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">European intellectual property law</span>

Intellectual property refers to an intangible property right which is enjoyed by law after the engagement in intellectual creative conducts, which cover a range of intangible property rights: patent, copyrights, trademark, design right and an indication of the original. Europe Union regulates the range of the law, including three different interdependent serious legislation, primary and secondary legislation, and law in cases. The empty area regulated by individual national members is not in the coverage of EU law. Based on the EU treaties, EU members each have the right to transfer and implement the discretion of EU law. Therefore, compared to conducting the application to the separate countries in EU it harbors more advantages to apply for the European patent office when seeking to obtain more extensive patent protection. That is to say, at each signatory of the Convention of European Patent, the holder who are granted the patent is given the equivalent right to the national patent of the countries.

References

  1. 1 2 "What's in a name?" (PDF). Patent Information News. European Patent Office (4/2014): 4. Retrieved January 9, 2015.
  2. ↑ INPADOC: 30 years of endeavours yet unmapped territories remain! 2005. World Pat Inf. 27/2, 105-11. D.G. Lingua. doi: 10.1016/j.wpi.2004.12.001
  3. ↑ "Vertrag zwischen der Republik Österreich und der Weltorganisation für geistiges Eigentum in Genf über die Errichtung eines Internationalen Patentdokumentationszentrums / Agreement between the Republic of Austria and the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva Concerning the Establishment of an International Patent Documentation Center (signed on May 2, 1972)" (PDF). Bundesgesetzblatt für die Republik Österreich (Austrian Federal Law Gazette) (in German, English, and French). Vienna. 93 (1973): 2015–2020. 17 August 1973. Retrieved January 9, 2015.
  4. ↑ Patent information and documentation in Western Europe: An inventory of services available to the public - International Patent Documentation Center (INPADOC). 1988. 202-5. B.M. Rimmer. doi: 10.1515/9783111681207-026
  5. ↑ "Agreement between the Republic of Austria and the European Patent Organization concerning the integration of the International Patent Documentation Center (INPADOC) into the European Patent Office" (PDF). Bundesgesetzblatt für die Republik Österreich (Austrian Federal Law Gazette) (in German, English, and French). Vienna. 263 (1990): 4059–4065. 6 November 1990. Retrieved January 9, 2015.
  6. ↑ "36 years in patent information" (PDF). Patent Information News. European Patent Office (2/2010): 12. Retrieved March 19, 2016.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.