Patent search
Although it is known that there are many intellectual creations in the world that have favored the realization or creation of tasks, activities and the like, such trademarks or inventions should be registered, and therefore if you want to find information about it you should start a patent search.
This search is related to or specifically emphasizes the help you can have to search in a database and patent search engines in order to find out if your idea or what you want to create, is already registered.
In case it is not registered, you will have to start the patent registration process and start the respective procedure suggested in these cases.
What is a patent of invention
It is convenient first to remember a little what is meant by a patent of invention, this is simply a record that determines or validate the creation of an invention by a particular person, this document allows you to give a right to use.
Now that we know what an invention patent consists of, we can say that there are several types of search engines, which, as mentioned above, have the purpose of facilitating the search for an invention.
What is a patent search
As it is well known, a patent requires to be created with a particular intention, the main function of getting patents is the technological disclosure that makes known the new technologies with the intention of promoting innovation and of course knowledge.
These patents are usually published after 18 months of being requested, it is good to know that in Spain the procedure for publication is usually in the Official Bulletin of industrial property and which can be consulted on the web and through which you will have access any day of the week except weekends.
There are many professionals who require information regarding patents, therefore it is important to include important information about patents, legal information, geographical validity as well as the temporality that may have.
Why it is so important to perform a patent search
Let’s see what may be the reasons in detail why it is so necessary to search for patent information. Among the reasons why they are so important, the following stand out:
- It allows to get information about existing technology and of course to use it with the intention of getting new information.
- To know who is doing something with respect to the details of the research being carried out, i.e. who appears for the first time through a patent document.
- It serves to find potential partners.
- It also allows us to identify those patents that are not active and can be used profitably in another type of project.
- It also helps us not to exceed the limits of patents that are already created, that is to say, to cover any space that is already in use, avoiding any legal problem in this regard.
Types of patent search engines
There are several types of search engines or patent databases as they are also known, which allow you to perform a comprehensive search of patents that are registered or granted, each office that is located at the regional level has an electronic database that allows you to make the query regardless of where you are.
Check below which are the patent databases in which you can search for information for free:
- Patentscope
This database provides readers with access to the various international cooperation treaty applications relating to patents in full-text format on the day of publication as well as to patent documents from national and regional patent offices.
This type of search engine allows you to search a database of 59 million documents containing patent information, of which 3.1 million applications are international applications, i.e. it allows you to search for international patents in an easy way. - Espacenet
Another free search engine that allows you to obtain information related to inventions and technical developments from the 19th century to the present day, it is extremely complete since it can offer more than 95 million patent documents that are scattered all over the world. - Google Patents
This is a search engine that has the facility to handle a large amount of information related to the patent and for this it has a database of more than 87 million patents published in the 17 offices that are broken down around the world.
It also has technical documents and indexing books in Google Scholar as well as Google Books.
An important information to know is that those patents that are in a language other than English, have been converted to English and of course have been indexed, this is said with the intention of streamlining the search process of the same and do not waste time looking for it in the original language. - Latipat
This is a platform that is responsible for performing or facilitating the search of public patent documents from Latin America and Spain through the platform called Espacenet.
Its database is made up of approximately 2.5 million bibliographic data and more than one million images of documents, - Lens
This is also an extremely interesting database, since its purpose is to have information of all patents worldwide, open digital public goods. - Invenes
Another database that contains valuable and important information about inventions from the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office which has more than two million reference numbers allowing you to search easily and in a friendly way.
This database contains extremely interesting data such as:
- Bibliographic data of royal privileges from 1826 to 1878.
- Restoration patents from 1878 to 1929.
- Bibliographic data and documents of patents and utility models processed by the Industrial Property Statute since 1929.
- New patent law of March 20, 1986.
- Information on European patents and patents applied for via PCT generated in Spain.
- Images published in the BOPI since 1988.
- Other information regarding this search engine service is that it contains Patents and Models of 18 Latin American countries since 1955, as well as their images since 1991.
- Ipsum
A very useful service in which you can consult online the status and therefore access information about patent applications specifically related to the United Kingdom. - Uspto-PatFT
Its acronym stands for United States Patent and Trademark Office and refers exclusively to the office in charge of issuing patents to inventors and companies; as well as the one in charge of trademark registrations.
It will allow you to perform a full text search from the year 1976, those related to the years 1970 and 1975 can only be searched by specific criteria such as patent number, classification number and date of issue, so take it into account if the patent you are looking for matches these criteria. - FPO
FPO stands for FreePatentsOnline, on this platform you can search for patents derived from the world’s largest databases, so you can have access to a wide variety of information. - KIPRIS
This is a free search service for patent documents that are available on the Internet, in it you can find publications of Korean industrial property applications.
Also through this wonderful platform you can get information on the legal status and some other information such as lawsuits. - J-PlatPat
It is another one of the many platform services that contains information about patents in Japan, it has the particularity that it can be used by anyone who requires it.
It has more than 110 million documents of patents, designs and trademarks, this information is extremely important since it contains information that has been published since the end of the 19th century. - SIPO
The acronym SIPO refers to the intellectual property office belonging to the People’s Republic of China, this office allows the search of inventions and utility models of the country. - AusPat
This is another of the most important search engines in the world today, it refers to a comprehensive search system for Australian patent data.
It is a completely free service that allows you to search for information related to Australian patents.
Now you know what options you have to search for international patents.