Slide 1
Today's economy is becoming increasingly knowledge-based, and intellectual property in the form of patents plays a vital role in this growth. Patents are granted for individual countries and are valid for twenty years at most. They give their owners the right to prevent others from using their invention, and are thus of major economic importance. They also help to recoup research costs, allowing the inventor to reinvest in research and development. In the following overview you will learn a bit about European Patents Fulltext, File 348 on Dialog, the information it contains and how its patent data can help you in your business.
Slide 2
Provided by the European Patent Office (EPO), European Patents Fulltext (File 348) is a collection of more than two million patent documents from individual inventors and companies seeking patent protection published directly by the European Patent Office . Filing a single application in any of three languages—English, French and German—enables patent protection in up to 38 countries. The EPO has been granting patents since the opening of the office in 1978. File 348 covers all European patent applications and granted European patents published since 1978 and bibliographic records for PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) applications transferred to the EPO. The file is international in scope and is updated weekly.
Slide 3
How did the European Patent Office get started—and thus European Patents Fulltext? More than 20 states met at a diplomatic conference in Munich in 1973 to discuss the introduction of a European patent grant procedure. The conference concluded with the signing of the European Patent Convention by 16 participants. Four years later, on October 7, 1977, the Convention came into force. With the legal framework in place, the EPO in Munich began its work as a granting authority. On June 1, 1978, the first applicants filed for European patent protection. That same year, the Office expanded to include a site in Berlin and the former International Patent Institute in The Hague. The filing figures reflect the EPO's rapid development: the 100,000th application was filed in 1983 and eight years later the total was 500,000. 1997 saw filing figures reach the million mark. The Vienna site was established at the start of the nineties, incorporating the former International Patent Documentation Center already located in the Austrian capital. A small EPO liaison office was also opened in Brussels to build up relations with the European Commission. In addition to all 27 EU member states, Croatia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Monaco, Norway, San Marino, Switzerland and Turkey belong to the European Patent Organization.
Slide 4
European Patents Fulltext is helpful to a diverse group from technical developers to library and information professionals to legal and patent researchers. Corporate decision makers use patents to get an idea of the big picture to help them make informed decisions. Business strategy managers, investment analysts and managers and innovators working in R&D are also interested in patents.
Slide 5
European Patents Fulltext encompasses all technologies patentable under European patent law although ten fields account for about half of all filings. Medical and veterinary science and hygiene traditionally attract the most filings with the EPO. The highest rate of growth in 2008 was in measuring and testing. Computer-implemented inventions feature in almost every field of technology these days. If they have a technical character and meet the EPC’s requirements, they can be patented. They can be anything from controls for a robotic arm to systems to monitor an electronic display. Other areas include organic chemistry, biochemistry, and organic macromolecular compounds to name some.
Slide 6
Note here the top companies filing for patents in the EPO in 2008 included Phillips, Siemans, Samsung, BASF, Robert Bosch, Qualcomm, LG Electronics, Panasonic, NXP and Toyota, which coincides with the types of patents being filed.
Slide 7
This graph shows countries where patentees reside. Note most are from the United States, with Germany and Japan in the top ranks. In fact, Germany surpassed the U.S. in 2008.
Slide 8
A few statistics provide more detail about European Patents Fulltext. The database now contains more than two million patents. Approximately 147,000 patent applications were filed in 2008 with the EPO. More than 35,000 different entities filed applications although the 100 most active applicants filed almost one-third of all applications in 2008. We can also see that some companies are very active filers, and 10 of these accounted for 10 percent of the total.
Slide 9
Patent information provides a wealth of information for many people involved in business, especially corporate decision makers, investors, managers and innovators working in research and development. European Patents Fulltext can help you to:
You can also find out what technologies exist and build on them. Legally, you can avoid infringing on others’ patent rights, and if you are a small company, you may secure market share with your patents.
Slide 10
The following example illustrates the type of information you can find in a record from European Patents Fulltext. Each record consists of bibliographic, administrative and legal status data from the European Patent Bulletin from 1978 forward. Included are the title in three languages—English, German and French. The patent assignee and address, the inventors and addresses and the legal representative with address are also included.
Slide 11
The patent number, patent country, date and Kind code giving the status of the patent are compiled in an easy-to-read table, along with the same information for the application. The priority country, patent number and date are given for the first filing. The designated states section shows the states covered by the EP patent listed. Related patent numbers show other patents in this patent family. English abstracts are added to German and French documents within several weeks of their addition to the database.
Slide 12
The record also includes complete specifications and claims of published, unexamined applications (A documents) from 1986 forward with full text in the original language of publication. The complete specifications and claims of examined, granted patents (B documents), if available, from 1991 forward as full text in English, German and French are included. In this part of the record the legal status application and examination are listed and the language of publication. The specification shows the field of the invention and background.
Slide 13
The Summary, a brief description of the figures in the patent, and a detailed description of exemplary embodiments are also included. Each section is extensive and is abbreviated here due to space constraints. Check the Bluesheet for more about the records.
Slide 14
The last part of the record lists the Claims, again this is abbreviated. Claims of B documents are searchable in all three official languages.
Slide 15
As you can see, European Patents Fulltext (File 348) provides comprehensive information about patents filed with the EPO.
Slide 16
This completes our overview of European Patents Fulltext. Thank you for your interest in this full-text patent database and put it on your list to try for free in January.
