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.
INPADOC was founded by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the government of Austria under an agreement on May 2, 1972. [2] The original database was offered to users in microfiche format. Patent Family Service (PFS) grouping was introduced, where all the documents belonging to a specific patent family were identified, in 1973. Legal status information became available in 1978. INPADOC went on-line 1981.
In 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." [3] Luxembourg had the largest temporal coverage going back to 1945. The database provided bibliographic information from 55 patent issuing authorities (73 in 2023) and the legal status service from 12 as of 1990.
INPADOC was integrated into the European Patent Office (EPO) in 1991 with the Principal Directorate Patent Information of the EPO having been located in Vienna, Austria since. [4] [5] In 2003 the backlog of the legal status database was cleared up, and the physical storage of electronic records was established in The Hague.
Approximately 130,000 bibliographic records from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore and Brunei covering years between 1990 and 2003 were added in 1991, albeit their availability was initially limited to CD-ROM format only. Patent data from Brazil and 19 Spanish-language countries were added in 2004.
In 2005, the database provided bibliographic information from 73 patent issuing authorities and the legal status service from 44. Also in 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.
Source: [6]
The European patent with unitary effect, also known as the unitary patent, is a European patent which benefits from unitary effect in the participating member states of the European Union. Unitary effect may be requested by the proprietor within one month of grant of a European patent, replacing validation of the European patent in the individual countries concerned. Infringement and revocation proceedings are conducted before the Unified Patent Court (UPC), which decisions have a uniform effect for the unitary patent in the participating member states as a whole rather than in each country individually. The unitary patent may be only limited, transferred or revoked, or lapse, in respect of all the participating Member States. Licensing is however possible for part of the unitary territory. The unitary patent may coexist with nationally enforceable patents in the non-participating states. The unitary patent's stated aims are to make access to the patent system "easier, less costly and legally secure within the European Union" and "the creation of uniform patent protection throughout the Union".
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 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.
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.
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 and patent law. A patent is not a right to practice or use the invention claimed therein, but a territorial right to exclude others from commercially exploiting the invention, granted to an inventor or their successor in rights in exchange to a public disclosure of the invention.
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.
The 1955 Austrian State Treaty ended the four-power occupation and recognized Austria as an independent and sovereign state. In October 1955, the Federal Assembly passed a constitutional law in which "Austria declares of her own free will her perpetual neutrality." The second section of this law stated that "in all future times Austria will not join any military alliances and will not permit the establishment of any foreign military bases on her territory." Since then, Austria has shaped its foreign policy on the basis of neutrality.
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.
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.
Cannabis in Austria is legal for scientific and limited 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.
Vienna, also known as Electoral District 9, is one of the nine multi-member state electoral districts of the National Council, the lower house of the Austrian Parliament, the national legislature of Austria. The electoral district was created as Electoral Union I in 1923 when electoral regulations were amended to add electoral unions to the existing electoral districts. It was renamed Vienna in 1971 following the re-organisation of electoral districts across Austria. It is conterminous with the city-state of Vienna. The electoral district currently elects 33 of the 183 members of the National Council using the open party-list proportional representation electoral system. At the 2019 legislative election the constituency had 1,149,664 registered electors.