In 2012, the Executive Chiefs of the EPO, OEPM and WIPO signed an MoU on the project to promote the exchange of patent information in the framework of LATIPAT amongst IPOs of Latin American countries.
The latest developments
During the General Assemblies in July 2023, a meeting was organized. The primary focus was on evaluating the current situation, assessing the needs of participating offices, and proposing upcoming activities to further our collective goals. Such activities include:
- Virtual meeting: To facilitate effective communication among project members, we have proposed a virtual meeting where all offices can establish direct contacts with technical teams and meet the new coordinator from the Dominican Republic. This will allow the IP Offices to establish direct contacts for future collaborations and understand what the next steps are.
- Building a Library of Similar Patents: this library would contain full-text of documents that are similar and published in different LATIPAT countries. Such a library will play a vital role in facilitating patent search, publication of an increased number of documents and contributing to machine learning.
- In-presence Training: Knowledge sharing lies at the core of LATIPAT's mission. In that spirit, we proposed a training program that will be held in one of the participating countries. This training will provide an opportunity to learn about the WIPO OCR tool.
- Webinar on WIPO Application Body converter: presentation of this WIPO tool that converts a document containing an international application body in Word format into XML. The usage of this tool, already used by e-PCT and the national IP Office of France (INPI), produces high-quality full-text and does not require proofreading.
Our discussions were marked by enthusiasm, collaboration, and a shared commitment to promoting innovation in the respective countries. By working together, we are confident in achieving meaningful progress within the LATIPAT project.
Past achievements
Maintenance and update of a regional database
Since the signature of the MoU, the three Organizations EPO, EOPM and WIPO, together with the IP Offices in Latin America have been working together to maintain and update a regional database containing the information of patent applications published and patents granted in Latin American countries. This database is providing access to the regions patent technology information in digital form and is serving as a common reference platform for the publication of patent information in Latin America. Under this project, 19 Latin American IP Offices have been actively participating in it and sending regularly their information in international standards in WIPO Standards and internationally recognized formats. Since the establishment of the PATENTSCOPE platform, this information is also being included in PATENTSCOPE.
Training in Costa Rica
One of the main objectives of WIPO’s assistance to IPOs participating in the LATIPAT project over the last years has been to increase searchable full-text data in digital form on patents published by these IPOs.
In November 2018, a LATIPAT training seminar was organized by WIPO and the EPO and the SPTO in San José, Costa Rica, during which staff from 12 Latin American IPOs were trained and received the license to use a WIPO developed OCR system for the creation of full text for patent applications and published patents. The seminar aimed at training the staff of those IPOs in the production of high quality full-text searchable data for inclusion in PATENTSCOPE and ESPACENET. Officials from Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay participated in the training.
As a result, the LATIPAT offices, periodically send data to WIPO and the EPO for inclusion in the database. The full text data produced under the OCR software is put into production.
In 2019, there were 16 countries participating in the project and sending bibliographic data and pdf files on patent applications and patents published by IP offices of these countries. In August 2019, the LATIPAT database registered over 2,900,000 bibliographic data and over 2,270,000 image data of full patent documents in digital and pdf format.
For additional information and/ request, please contact us.