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 IMS Patent Focus, File 447 on Dialog, the information it contains and how its patent data can help you in your business.
Slide 2
Provided by IMS Health, IMS Patent Focus (File 447) is a premier source of information on pharmaceutical product patent families, allowing you to access the product patent famly directly from the generic name of the drug and see the patent position by expiry date across countries. The database covers the product patent position for over 1,200 marketed drugs or promising drugs in Phase III or above clinical trials. Thus, the focus is on the most commercially significant drugs. The file is international in scope and is updated monthly.
Slide 3
IMS Patent Focus obtains information for its database from official patent documentation from patent offices worldwide by checking patent applications and granted patents. IMS also has connections with patent attorneys at the local country level and a close relationship with the American Chemical Society to update their records. Experts at IMS check official patent journals, as well as online and Internet services to monitor lapsing and granted patents, extensions, and other changes in patent status.
Slide 4
It is important to know when patents are nearing expiration. This provides a chance for the pharmaceutical company to create a generic version, license to another company or for competitors with their own drugs to step in. Production levels may be impacted or a company may need to find ways to extend the life of a drug. This knowledge also enables chemical or generics companies to uncover opportunities and assess the viability of generics markets in the future.
Slide 5
Detailed content in the record supplies patent and application numbers and dates by country, as well as individual country comments including detailed patent claims, litigations, effects of GATT laws and local patent numbers, expiry dates and priority details. Information about the drug, including trade names, CAS Registry numbers, therapy class and indications, is also listed. Company information includes the patent originator and parent company, if different. Countries are not grouped in worldwide families, rather there is a separate record for the patent for each country.
Slide 6
A pharmaceutical company will protect its drug in as many ways as possible to prevent a generic (copy) from being launched, This results in a number of patents covering the same drug. Patents on IMS Patent Focus are categorized according to type: product, process, composition, method of use, drug delivery system and a new type device. It is important not to assume that the product patent is the only patent protecting a drug. Even after a product patent expires, there may be some later protection offered by these other patents. The chart shows the patent type breakdown.
Slide 7
A few statistics provide more detail about IMS Patent Focus. The database now contains more than 4,600 patent families with CAS Registry numbers representing 190,000 patent records worldwide and covers 120 countries including European patents and applications . It covers approximately 20,000 patents where the mode of action is biotechnology. More than 8,000 records are added each year.
Slide 8
You can use IMS Patent Focus to estimate expiry dates for competitor drugs or to see where supplementary protection certificates or other extensions have been applied for or granted. You can also find commercially significant patents where companies apply for extensions including formulation or process patents and you can see where patent applications have been filed for drugs in R&D. This can help you find likely candidates for further patent investigation and enable you to coordinate your business decisions.
Slide 9
Information about the drug appears first including the drug name, CAS Registry numbers, brand names and laboratory code. Therapeutic class codes are listed, along with clinical indications for the drugs use.
Slide 10
The record also includes details about the patentee and parent company, the patent country South Africa, number, patent date and expiration date and the priority country, priority number and date. The patent summary supplies more information about the drug patent.
Slide 11
The Expiry comments indicate the patent was granted in 2002 and is likely to expire in 2019. Note too the country comments for the South Africa patent. Check the Bluesheet for more about the records.
Slide 12
As you can see, IMS Patent Focus (File 447) provides detailed information about drug patents.
Slide 13
This completes our overview of IMS Patent Focus. Thank you for your interest in this drug patent database and put it on your list to try for free in September.
