PATENTSCOPE

Abridgment

A concise description of the invention, usually written by a patent examiner, and is still published in a few countries. An abridgment is a more detailed and explicit version of an abstract.

See Abstract

Abstract

A concise summary of the technical disclosure of a patent document (e.g. patent application) enabling a reader to quickly ascertain the subject matter covered, usually in the patent searching context.

An abstract provides technical information and cannot be taken into account for other purposes, e.g., for interpreting the scope of protection claimed in the patent document itself.

The text of an abstract usually contains no more than 150 words and may be accompanied by a representative drawing or chemical formula.

The abstract is usually prepared by the applicant and published on the front page of the patent document. It may also be published separately, e.g., in an official gazette or an abstract journal. In several countries patent abstracts are separately published as special documents containing bibliographic data, the text of the abstract, and drawings or chemical formulae.

Patent abstracts are also prepared and distributed by special abstracting services (commercial firms specialized in technological information services).

Articles 3(2) and (3), 14(1)(a)(iv)
Rules 8, 38

Access to Industrial Property Information

A term used to cover all methods to identify and retrieve specific industrial property information. Identification may be based on technical fields in which case classification symbols (e.g. the International Patent Classification) or keywords (e.g., from a thesaurus) are used. Alternatively, identification may be based on the name of an applicant or inventor, on the dates (e.g., application or publication date), or on the country of publication.

Agent

A person who has the right to practice before a national Office or PCT Authority and who may be appointed to act on behalf of an applicant for an international application.

Articles 27(7), 49
Rules 2, 4.7, 90

Alert

In order to stay current regarding your technology area of interest, alerts can be used to ensure your organization is continually updated on new, pertinent information as it becomes available. Alerts coincide with the publication frequency of the publication source of interest (weekly in the case of the PCT database). Synonym for Current Awareness Searches.

Applicant

A person claiming to be the first and true inventor, or assignee of the first and true inventor of an invention. There may be one or more applicants. In the United States, the applicant(s) must be the inventor(s).

For a PCT international application the applicant must be any natural person or legal entity who is a national or resident of a PCT Contracting State.

An applicant is sometimes known as an assignee or owner.

Article 9
Rules 4.5, 18, 19

Assignment

Or Reassignment. The assignee (applicant) transfers ownership of the patent rights to another party.

Bibliographic Data

The term "bibliographic data" refers to the various data normally appearing on the first page of a patent document or the corresponding applications. Such data comprise document identification data, domestic filing data, priority data, publication data, classification data and other concise data relating to the technical content of the document or of the entry in the official publication.

WIPO Standard  ST.9

See also Front Page Data

Boolean Operators

Words such as AND, OR, and ANDNOT that are called "logical operators" and are used to combine search terms to either broaden or narrow the results of a search. Boolean Searching describes the method of searching in which terms are combined to either recall more documents or to retrieve a more precise set of documents.

Chapter I

The chapter of the PCT, that regulates, the filing of the international application, international search, establishment of the written opinion of the International Searching Authority, international publication of the international application, and provides for the communication of the international application and related documents to designated Offices.

Articles 3-30
Rules 1.1(b), 47, 87
 

Chapter II

The chapter of the PCT, that regulates, the optional international preliminary examination procedure, and provides for the communication of the international preliminary examination report and certain related documents to elected Offices.

A demand may be filed by the applicant to enter Chapter II. If no demand is filed the application remains in Chapter I.

Articles 31-42

See also International phase

Citation

Occurring in a patent document, search report, or in another document is a reference to another document, which may affect the patentability of a (claimed) invention.

If the citation refers to a patent document, it states at least who is the national or regional office which published the document, the serial number and, usually, the publication date of that document.

If the citation refers to a scientific article or a book, it consists of the title of the periodical or book, the title of the article, the volume and page number and, usually, the publication date. A citation may also make reference to an oral disclosure, use, exhibition or other means of disclosure.

WIPO Standard  ST.14

See also Search Report

Claim(s)

The part of a patent document which defines, in legal terms, the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention and for which protection (and monopoly) is sought or granted. Each claim is a single sentence in a legalistic form that defines an invention and its unique technical features. Claims must be clear and concise and fully supported by the description.

Most patent documents, including international applications, must contain at least one claim. Claims are usually located at the end of a patent document, after the detailed description, and before any drawings or Search Report. In electronic patent documents such as international applications (in PDF format) on the PCT database on PATENTSCOPE ^®, claims are easily located by clicking the "Claims" bookmark.

Articles 3(2), 6, 11
Rules 6, 13.3, 13.4

See also Monopoly

Confidentiality

In the context of the PCT, confidentiality means no publication and no access is allowed to third parties (by the International Bureau or related parties) to an international application or any related documents before its international publication, unless requested or authorized by the applicant.

Articles 21, 30, 38
Rules 44 ter, 94

Continuation

In the United States, a later application claiming the same invention filed, while the original application is pending. The original filing date is used for determination of prior art.

Continuation-in-part

In the United States, a second application for the same invention usually to introduce improvements not covered in the original application. The original filing date is used for prior art.

Current Awareness Searches

In order to stay current regarding your technology area of interest, current awareness searches can be used to ensure your organization is continually updated on new, pertinent information as it becomes available. Current awareness searches coincide with the publication frequency of the publication source of interest (weekly in the case of the PCT database). Synonym for Alerts.

Declaration

In the context of the PCT, the request may, contain up to five kinds of declarations, as provided for in Rule 4.17. The declaration must contain standardized wording. Declarations may also be provided to the International Bureau within a time limit of 16 months from the priority date or at the latest, before completion of technical preparations for international publication.

Rules 4.17, 26 ter.1, 51 bis.1
Sections 211-215

Defensive Publications

Publications of the details of an invention in a publication to prevent others from obtaining a patent on the invention, at a later date. Such "defensive publications," can be made available to examiners at patent offices to prevent a patent application from being granted.

Demand

A request (on Form PCT/IPEA/401) by the applicant for international preliminary examination to be carried out on the international application. The demand indicates the applicants, agents, and the international application to which it relates, as well as indications of elements to be considered for examination. The Demand is a term relating to PCT international applications.

Article 31
Rule 53
Sections 334, 414, 415(b) and (c), 417(d), 418, 420, 431, 432, 516, 601, 614

Description of the Invention

The description of the invention is one of the essential parts of patent applications and patents. The description describes the essential features of the invention with reference to any accompanying drawings giving sufficient instruction to enable a person of ordinary skill in the art (i.e. technical field) to make or perform the invention. The description forms the basis for the Claims and includes a brief summary of the technical background of the invention. Examples, gene sequence listings, and/or a deposit of a microorganism may be considered to be part of the description of the invention.

The description is located before the claims and usually forms the bulk of the specification. In electronic patent documents such as international applications (in PDF format) on the PCT database on PATENTSCOPE ^®, a Description is easily located by clicking the "Description" bookmark once the specific international application has been located. The full text of the Description and Claims of international applications is searchable and viewable.

Articles 3(2), 5, 11(1)
Rule 5

See also Full Text Data .

In the context of the PCT, a designation is an indication in an international application the effect of which is that the filing of a request constitutes the designation of all States bound by the PCT (at the international filing date) for any kind of available protection.

Article 4.1(ii), 24
Rule 4.9(a)
Sections 203, 318

See also Request

Drawings

The part of an application which illustrates the invention and which is required when it is necessary for the understanding of the invention. The drawings, if any, are generally located near the end of the patent specification, after the claims. A representative drawing is selected for the front page of the international application.

Articles 3(2), 7
Rule 7.1

Equivalent

An application filed in a foreign patent office that is substantially similar or equivalent to the first filed patent and is based on some or all of the same invention. The two applications would generally have the same applicant and priority data

See also Patent Families

Examination

A scrutiny by an official, usually a patent examiner, of an Intellectual Property office, to determine the acceptability of a patent. Patents are examined to determine if an invention is novel, contains an inventive step (not obvious), is industrially applicable (useful), and other criteria.

Field Codes

Field Codes allow you to search within the individual fields found within documents.

On the PCT Database on PATENTSCOPE ^® , you can access a list of all indexed fields from the 'Field Codes' link at the top of the Advanced Search page. These Field codes are applicable to the Advanced and Simple search interface if you prefix the word you are searching for with the abbreviated field name e.g. IC, followed by a forward slash (/).

The Structured Search interface allows searching in specific fields without the need for typing field codes.

Freedom-to-Operate Search

A freedom-to-operate search is performed to identify patents or applications which may cover a proposed product or process and are still in force. Such a search will be country or region specific and require analysis of claims and legal status. Synonym for infringement search.

Front Page Data

In the context of PCT, Front Page data is the bibliographic data as well as an abstract of the invention and a representative drawing, if any, that can be seen on the front page of an international application.

See also Bibliographic data.

Full Text Data

Full Text data in the PCT database context means that the claims and descriptions as well as bibliographic data of PCT international applications, are made available in searchable text format.

The full text is obtained by applying automatic Optical Character Recognition procedures (OCR) to the scanned images of the documents. They therefore contain discrepancies with the originals and do not have a legal value. The texts are used to feed the PATENTSCOPE ^® PCT database text indexing engine and are provided, at no cost, as an additional service to the general public on PATENTSCOPE ^® .

The average accuracy of the texts of published international applications obtained from the PCT automatic OCR procedures is generally well above 98.5% (i.e. less than 40 errors for a page that contains 3000 characters). However, the accuracy may drop significantly for a small percentage of difficult documents published every week. This is usually due to bad paper originals before scanning or to pages with complex layouts, fonts or with words that cannot be found in dictionaries (often applications containing chemical or mathematical formulae with too small a font size).

Granted Patents

A legal document giving an inventor the right to exclude others from (i.e. monopolize) making, using, or selling the invention according to the laws governing patents in the country or region granting the patent.

Infringement Search

An infringement search is performed to identify patents or applications which may cover a proposed product or process and are still in force. Such a search will be country or region specific and require analysis of claims and legal status. Synonym for freedom-to-operate search.

Intellectual Property

Creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce.

Intellectual property is divided into two categories:

1. Industrial property, which includes inventions (patents), trademarks, industrial designs, and geographic indications of source; and
2. Copyright, which includes literary and artistic works such as novels, poems and plays, films, musical works, artistic works such as drawings, paintings, photographs and sculptures, and architectural designs. Rights related to copyright include those of performing artists in their performances, producers of phonograms in their recordings, and those of broadcasters in their radio and television programs.

International Bureau

This refers to the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organization. In addition to its task as receiving Office for applicants from all Contracting States, it handles certain processing tasks in respect of all international applications filed with all receiving Offices worldwide.

Articles 2(xix), 55
Administrative Instructions, Part 4

International Filing Date

The date of receipt of the international application by the receiving Office, which is accorded when the international application complies with the requirements.

Article 11(1)
Rules 20.4 and 20.5
Sections 309, 310, 324

International Patent Application

An application for the protection of an invention filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). An international application contains a request, a description, one or more claims, one or more drawings (where required) and an abstract.

Articles 2(vii), 3

International phase

A procedure consisting of four main steps:

(1) the filing of an international application and its processing by the receiving Office;

(2) the establishment of an international search report and a written opinion by the International Searching Authority;

(3) the international publication of the international application and related documents, as well as their communication to the designated and elected Offices; and

(4) an option of international preliminary examination, which concludes with the establishment of the international preliminary report on patentability (Chapter II of the PCT).

See also PCT Applicant's Guide and Chapter II

Invalidity Search

An invalidity or opposition search is to identify patent and non-patent documents which may impact the claims of a specific patent. This can help block patents and establish solidity of a patent portfolio which may be useful for licensing or company acquisition.

Inventor

Someone who has a new idea and pursues its development. Inventors apply for patents on their inventions as a part of developing their invention.

Invention

An invention or innovation is the creation of a new technical idea and of the physical means to accomplish. To be patentable, an invention must be novel, be useful, and differ from what skilled people in the technology area might expect.

Inventive step

Inventive step (also called non-obviousness) is one of the criteria of patentability. A claimed invention shall be considered to involve an inventive step if the claimed invention is not obvious (to a person skilled in the relevant technology area) when compared to the prior art (technology) at the date of filing.

Article 33, 34(4)(a)(ii),
Rule 33.1(a), 43 bis.1(a)(i), 65, 66.2(a)(i)

IPC (International Patent Classification)

International Patent Classification is a hierarchical system in which the whole area of technology is divided into a range of sections, classes, subclasses and groups. The Classification is a language independent tool indispensable for the retrieval of patent documents in the search for "prior art."

See also the IPC website

IPC8 Catchword Index

The Official Catchword Index helps the users to find a starting point in the classification scheme by browsing a list of catchwords. It offers about 20,000 entries consisting of short technical terms and keywords which refer the user to an appropriate classification place.

See the catchword tab in the IPC8 and the FAQ in the IPC site

IPEA (International Preliminary Examining Authority)

An Authority (either a national Office or an intergovernmental organization) appointed by the PCT Assembly to carry out the international preliminary examination procedure. Its task is to establish the international preliminary report on patentability (Chapter II of the PCT).

Articles 16(3), 32
Rule 59

See also Chapter II

IPER (International Preliminary Examination Report)

A preliminary, non-binding opinion, established by the International Preliminary Examining Authority on the request of the applicant, on the questions whether the claimed invention appears to be novel, to involve an inventive step (to be non-obvious), and to be industrially applicable. As of 1 January 2004, this report is also known as the "international preliminary report on patentability (Chapter II of the PCT)".

Articles 31, 32, 33, 35 
Rule 70
See also Annexes to the international preliminary report on patentability (Chapter II of the PCT)

IPRP (International Preliminary Report on Patentability) - Chapter I of the PCT

A preliminary, non-binding report on whether the claimed invention appears to be patentable. It is issued by the International Bureau on behalf of the International Searching Authority under Chapter I of the PCT where an international preliminary examination report has not been or will not be established. The report has essentially the same contents as the written opinion of the International Searching Authority.

Rule 44 bis

See also Chapter I

IPRP (International Preliminary Report on Patentability) - Chapter II of the PCT

A preliminary, non-binding opinion, established by the International Preliminary Examining Authority on the request of the applicant, on the questions whether the claimed invention appears to be novel, to involve an inventive step (to be non-obvious), and to be industrially applicable. This report was previously called the "international preliminary examination report".

Articles 31, 32, 33, 35
Rule 70

ISA (International Searching Authority)

An Authority (either a national Office or an intergovernmental organization) appointed by the PCT Assembly to carry out international searches. It establishes international search reports and the written opinion of the International Searching Authority.

Article 16

ISR (International Search Report)

An international search report (ISR) is established by the International Searching Authority. The ISR contains citations of documents considered to be relevant for the claimed invention (i.e. relevant prior art), the classification of the subject matter of the invention, and an indication of the fields searched as well as indications of any electronic data base searched.

Article 18
Rules 33, 43

See also Search Report and Citation

Kind Codes

Codes indicating the stage of the published patent document, e.g. A1 = published application complete with International Search Report, (ISR) A2 = published application without ISR, A3 = published ISR.

WIPO Standard  ST.16

Legal Status Information

The legal status of a patent publication includes information about events affecting the patent application including:
1. Publication stages, usually defined by patent codes e.g., publication of an international application.
2. Equivalent patent publications e.g., a PCT international application such as has entered national phase in another country.
3. Positive events, progressing toward later stages of publication e.g., a search report is published.
4. Negative events, which hinder the patent publication process e.g., an Opposition of the patent publication.
5. Post-publication events e.g., a patent has been licensed or reassigned to another company. Or the term of a patent has expired or been extended.

See also Patent Information

License

A legal contract given by a licensor to a licensee for the right to use a Patented invention, Trademark, Design, or Copyrighted work.

Monopoly

Control of a commodity or service in a particular market which enables the one having control to raise the price substantially above that fixed by free competition. A granted patent gives a monopoly to the applicant for the technology claimed for a limited time (usually 20 years), in return for the applicant disclosing the technical means to carry out the invention.

The English Statute of Monopolies of 1623 was a founding document for patent systems today.

Minimum documentation

The minimum requirement for a patent office collection that is used to find prior art documents (patents and periodicals) in order to assess novelty and inventiveness.

In the context of the PCT, minimum documentation is the set of documents in which the International Search Authority must search for relevant prior art. It also applies to International Preliminary Examining Authorities for examination purposes. The documentation comprises certain published patent documents and non-patent literature (journals).

Article 15(4)
Rule 34

See patent and non-patent documentation

National Phase

This follows the international phase of the PCT procedure, and consists of the entry and processing of the international application in the individual countries or regions in which the applicant seeks protection for his invention.

Articles 22, 23, 39(1), 40

Natural language IPC search (TACSY)

TACSY allows entering of short descriptions of technical subject matter in natural language. TACSY analyses the question, queries an indexed IPC base and then returns a list of class codes.

Novelty Search

Synonym for patentability search. A novelty search is made to identify patents and non-patent literature which may affect the patentability of an invention. This search is recommended to applicants to be done before writing and filing the patent specification, and as such is sometimes called a pre-application search. The scope of a novelty search is narrower than a State-of-the-Art search.

Patent

A patent is a document which describes an invention which can be manufactured, used, and sold with the authorization of the owner of the patent. An invention is a solution to a specific technical problem. A patent document normally contains at least one claim, the full text of the description of the invention, and bibliographic information such as the applicant's name. The protection given by a patent is limited in time (generally 15 to 20 years from filing or grant). It is also limited territorially to the country or countries concerned.

A patent is an agreement between an inventor and a country. The agreement permits the owner to exclude others from making, using or selling the claimed invention.

Article 2(ii)

Patent Application

A patent application is a document submitted by an inventor requesting to be issued a patent for an invention described in the specification which accompanies the application.

Article 2(i)

Patent Document not in tutorial

If not specified otherwise, the expression "patent documents" normally includes the following documents : published patent applications, patents for invention, inventors' certificates, utility certificates, utility models, patents or certificates of addition, inventors' certificates of addition, utility certificates of addition and published applications therefor.

WIPO Standard  ST.16

Patent Families

A group of patent equivalents relating to a specific invention make up a patent family. Members of a closely-related patent family have a common priority application number and date. Extended patent family members typically result from complex relationships but sharing at least one common priority application from different countries. Or extended patent family members may relate to relationships resulting from divisions, continuations, or continuations-in-part.

See also Equivalent

Patent Information, Types of

Patent information covers:

(1) technical information relating to articles, products, processes and uses and is described in the examples, drawings, and formulae of the patent documents,

(2) legal status information relating to whether the patent or other industrial property right is in force, data from the patent register, etc., and

(3) bibliographic information relating to published patent documents.

See also Technical Information , Legal Status Information , and Bibliographic Information

Patentability Search

Synonym for novelty search. A patentability search is made to identify patents and non-patent literature which may affect the patentability of an invention. This search is recommended to applicants to be done before writing and filing the patent specification, and as such is sometimes called a pre-application search. The scope of a patentability search is narrower than a State-of-the-Art search.

PATENTSCOPE^®

The patent and PCT portal provided by the World Intellectual Property Organization. PATENTSCOPE^® allows access, at no cost, to the wealth of technological information contained in all published international patent applications, since the beginning in 1978. Since April 2006, the PCT database on PATENTSCOPE^® is the authentic publication source of international applications in full text format on publication day. Powerful and flexible search interfaces allow retrieval of relevant international applications and associated information.

See PATENTSCOPE^®

PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty)

The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is an international treaty, administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The PCT is a system facilitating the worldwide filing of patent applications. The PCT makes it possible to seek patent protection for an invention simultaneously in each of a large number of countries (who are contracting states to the PCT) by first filing a single "international" patent application. Later, the granting of patents remains under the control of the national or regional patent Offices in what is called the "regional phase" or "national phase."

See PCT

See also International Phase and National Phase

Prior Art

(1) In a broad sense, technology that is relevant to an invention and was publicly available (e.g. described in a publication or offered for sale) before the relevant priority date,

(2) in a narrow sense, any such technology which would invalidate a patent or limit its scope. The process of determining whether the claimed invention is new and involves an inventive step (i.e. is not obvious) for the purposes of search and examination largely consists of identifying relevant prior art and distinguishing the claimed invention from that of prior art.

Synonym of "State of the Art."

Article 15, 64(4) 
Rules 33, 43 bis.1, 64, 65, 70.9, 70.10

Primary Sources of Patent Information

This expression usually relates to patent documents. In some cases, it may relate also to institutions making patent documents accessible.

See also Secondary Sources of Patent Information

Priority application

The application with the earliest date, when an inventor files for a patent in more than one country. The Paris Convention enables an inventor to file in a first country and then claim priority (for a period up to 12 months) for filing an application in other countries which are contracting parties to the Paris Convention or which are Members of the World Trade Organization.

Rule 17

Priority Data

The part of the bibliographic data (normally published on the first page of a patent document) identifying the earlier patent application(s) on the basis of which a so-called priority right has been claimed (usually based on Article 4 of the Paris Convention). These identification data comprise three elements : the application number, the filing date and the identification of the country or organization where the respective earlier application was filed. Priority data belong to the basic bibliographic data of a patent document and may serve to identify patent documents published in different countries and languages but referring to the same invention ("Patent Family").

Priority Date

In the context of the PCT, priority date means the filing date of the earliest application of which priority is claimed, and if no priority is claimed, the filing date is the international filing date.

Article 2(xi)

Publication Number

Given to a patent document for publication. The publication number may be the same as or different from an application number, depending on the country or region. Each can be used for identification.

In the context of the PCT, publication numbers begin with WO/. Application numbers are different and begin with PCT/.

See also Publication

Publication

In publications on industrial property information matters, the terms "publication" and "published" are normally used in the sense of making available the contents of a document to the public.

Depending on the particular national law, patent documents may be published on several levels of publication, as detailed in WIPO Standard  ST.16.

The international application or any related documents related are not published prior to the expiration of 18 months from the priority date, unless the applicant requests early publication of the international application, or the application is withdrawn.

See WIPO Standard  ST.16

Receiving Office

The national Office, intergovernmenta,l or international organization with which the international application is filed and which checks and processes it according to the PCT and its Regulations.

Articles 2(xv), 10

Request

The part of the international application that contains a request for the international application to be processed according to the PCT and which also contains certain indications relating to designated States in which protection is sought, the invention, as well as the applicant(s), inventor(s) and any agent.

Articles 3, 4
Rules 3, 4

See also Designation

Right truncation

A special character such as an asterisk (*) that you can use to represent zero, one, or more characters at the end of a word. Any character or set of characters can replace the * in a search. In the context of the PCT database on PATENTSCOPE& ^® an * can be placed at the end of a word to represent any number of characters. Truncation is a synonym of wildcards.

RSS (Real Simple Syndication)

A lightweight XML format for distributing and organizing specific news headlines and other content on the Web. It is an alternative means of accessing the vast amount of information that now exists on the world wide web. Instead of the user browsing websites for information of interest, the information is sent directly to the user.

RSS is available from the results list of every search you make in the PATENTSCOPE ^® PCT database.

Search

The search is made to identify any documents considered to be necessary to determine whether the invention is new and involves an inventive step. Types of search:

(1) According to technical means used e.g.: manual search (in a paper collection), on-line search (in a computerized file), offline electronic search (e.g. in a DVD collection).

(2) According to the purpose of the search: state of the art search, novelty search, infringement search, etc.

(3) According to the means used: classification search, name search, catchword (keyword) search, full text search, text mining etc.

Search Report

Report of the results of a search of the state of the art, made by or on behalf of an industrial property office, indicating citations considered relevant for determining, in particular, the novelty and inventive step of the invention as claimed. Citations may negate the patentability of material described in the patent document.

See also Citation

Secondary Sources of Patent Information

This expression relates to all kinds of sources, except patent documents (e.g., journals, official gazettes, databases, etc.), which supply bibliographic data on patent documents and information on their contents in a convenient and consolidated form, e.g., by an abstract or by a reproduction of the main claim(s), plus a reproduction of the basic drawing(s) or formula(e) whenever appropriate. Secondary sources of patent information imply, but are not restricted to, official gazettes, abstract pamphlets or indexes published by intellectual property offices. Often, secondary sources of patent information originate from specialized commercial institutions.

See also Primary Sources of Patent Information

Specification

The part of a patent document which gives a detailed description of the invention, accompanied by claims. The specification may, when appropriate, include drawings, gene sequence listings, and formulae.

See also Description of the Invention

Sequence listing

A patent application may contain one or more nucleotide and/or amino acid sequences. The description should contain a sequence listing as a separate part of the description. This is usually found either in the detailed description (before the claims) or as figures occurring after the claims.

Rules 5.2, 13 ter
Sections 208, 801-806

State of the Art

The level of development to which a particular area of technical subject matter has advanced at a given date, to help guide research. It consists of everything disclosed to the public, including Patents and non-patent literature. Synonym of Prior Art.

In connection with a particular invention, the state of the art is decisive for the determination of the patentability of the invention in regard to novelty and inventive step.

Subject Matter Search

Subject matter searches establish the state of the art for a particular technology area, to find out about solutions to a technical problem, or to find patents comparable to the claimed invention. These searches usually involve a combination of text and classification searching, such as the International Patent Classification.

TACSY

TACSY allows entering of short descriptions of technical subject matter in natural language. TACSY analyses the question, queries an indexed IPC base and then returns a list of class codes.

Technical Information

Includes a short description, a detailed description (describing how to recreate and work the invention), sometimes one or more drawings, gene sequence listings, and claims which define the scope of protection sought.

See also Patent Information

Title of the Invention

Several words contained in the request part of the application indicating clearly, concisely and as specifically as possible the subject matter of the invention.

Rules 4.1(a)(ii), 4.3, 5.1(a)

WIPO Standard  ST.15

Wildcards

A special character such as an asterisk (*) that you can use to represent zero, one, or more characters. Any character or set of characters can replace the wildcard in a search. In the context of the PCT database on PATENTSCOPE ^® an * can be placed at the end of a word to represent any number of characters, or in other words "right truncation".

WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization)

WIPO is a specialized agency of the United Nations, that has two main objectives. The first is to promote the protection of intellectual property worldwide. The second is to ensure administrative cooperation among the intellectual property Unions established by the treaties that WIPO administers.

See About WIPO