IP Resources: LexisNexis update including new IP DataDirect-Patents

LexisNexis recently updated a number of its IP resources and also added a new service providing patent information for in-house proprietary systems, IP DataDirect-Patents.

In addition to the full-text data from 22 patent authorities, IP DataDirect-Patents also includes:

• "Bibliographic and abstract data from 96 authorities
• English-language machine translations
• Clipped images
• Legal status, forward and backward citations, and patent-family data
• PDF images in searchable, bookmarked, and compressed format"

LexisNexis' TotalPatent database has also been updated to output data in XML format for use in internal systems. Furthermore, there TotalPatent now has an option to search by inventor/assignee, and is now organised into patent families.

The new functionality added to the PatentOptimizer tool includes, "patent links that navigate directly into the TotalPatent service, allowing customers to check terms and references, as well as verify citations. Additionally, customers verifying claims can immediately compare and navigate multiple claim sets across a series of user-identified documents."

Sources & for further information

LexisNexis Press Releases - LexisNexis® Expands Intellectual Property Solutions to Help Customers Protect Valuable Assets

LexisNexis - IP DataDirect-Patents

LexisNexis - TotalPatent

LexisNexis - PatentOptimizer

IP Resources - PatBase

A new addition to IP Menu's Database Networks is Minesoft's PatBase. PatBase is a searchable, international, patent family & full text patent database covering over 75 authorities.

"PatBase offers over 20 million full-text searchable documents from the US, EP, PCT, GB, DE and FR patent-issuing authorities. A hit map and keyword-in-context hit analysis assist users in document examination. PatBase also offers citation searching enabling users to navigate through patent and no-patent documents cited against US, EP, and WO publications as well as a citation tree visual analysis tool. An alerting service, which provides clients with up-to-date reports on their search criteria, is available on a weekly or monthly basis."

Minesoft also offers other software products related to PatBase:

"PatBase Express offers a simple and intuitive way of investigating patents by subject, competitor or number. Based on the original PatBase database, which was developed by Minesoft and RWS Group as a search tool for patent professionals, PatBase Express draws upon the same comprehensive data, but offers a simplified way of searching so it can be used by anyone in a corporation who would like to find out about patents or competitor activities. Used by research engineers & chemists, paralegals and business managers."

"Minesoft Patent Family Portal is an ideal service for fast, up-to-date checks on patent families and corresponding legal status. Designed for users who require the very latest comprehensive patent family and legal status data in a well-organised, concisely tabulated layout, it provides fast, concise access to INPADOC and Patent Office Registry records covering over 70 countries."

The PatBase website is located at: http://www.patbase.com

IP Resources - Questel enhancements

In the recent months Questel has further updated and enhanced their database system. One of the key enhancements is the addition of further full-text documents. The US backfile full-text now covers 1920-1973 and in the next few weeks there will also be full-text documents for Switzerland, Belgium and Austria.

In addition, there are now machine translated titles and abstracts for Germany, France, Japan, Korean and China. Other new features listed on the Questel news page include the following:

• "Natural and Multi-lingual search via our partnership with Lingway for PatentXL
• Comprehensive JP legal status via our partnership with PATOLIS Corp.
• More stats in the analysis module via our partnership with Intellixir"

Questel has also added new cited patents and non-patent documents in PatPlus and FamPat for the following countries: BE, CH, NL, TR, AU, JP, BS, ES, SG, DK, LU, FI, CY, and IT. This is in addition their existing literature for EP, WO, US, DE, FR, GB and JP. Moreover, "the Citation search field now includes standardized citation numbers and displays hit-term highlighting."

The final new enhancement is the Questel Analysis module. Questel states that "with this new powerful and interactive web-based analysis module, you can analyse patents from within your PatentExaminer workfiles by:

• Date, country, priority country
• Inventors and Assignees
• IPC - by IPC including IPC definitions
• Cross analysis by Assignees and IPCs"

Questel is available for a fee from www.questrel.com

Source and for further information

Questel - Website home page [includes release update details]

Europe - New EPO IP Training Website: ip4inno

The European Patent Office has launched a new website providing information about intellectual property called ip4inno.

As the ip4inno website explains, "its main aim is to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) enhance their understanding and use of intellectual property rights with a view to promoting innovation and competitiveness in line with the European Commission's Lisbon goals."

The website allows users to "perform an advanced search for a wide selection of articles, case studies and best practices for small and medium-sized enterprises on topics ranging from basic info on patents and other kinds of intellectual property, through patent information, to building a business with intellectual property."

In addition, the website at a later date will also provide a library of material for intellectual property trainers to use.

Sources and for further information

European Patent Office - IP training website launched

ip4inno homepage - http://www.ip4inno.eu/

ip4inno - What is ip4inno

ip4inno - For SMEs

New Intellectual Property Resource: PatDL

Sooner Tech's PatDL is a new intellectual property resource that has just been added the Database Network page on IP Menu.

"PatDL is a software of Patent Searcher and Downloader which is custom-made for general scientific researcher and patent staff."

Features

• "Automatically Download patent’s full text, abstract, legal state in batches; and merge all of the pages to one file in PDF, including the abstract and legal status. You can also merge the pages you select to one file by yourself.
• Search patents from the most important databases about patents, such as EPO V3 database, SIPO Chinese, SIPO English, TIPO Chinese, USPTO PatFT, USPTO AppFT, JPO English
• Download patents from several databases, EPO V2 database, EPO V3 database, SIPO database, USPTO database (including granted US patents and published US patent applications), JPO database (including all JP patents), JPO English (PAJ), TIPO database (Taiwan patent gazette), TWPat database (Taiwan patent document), SIPO English
• Automatically analyze the type of the full text and download them.
• Extract biblio.data to EXCEL file quickly for analyzing patents.
• Automatically split a patent into several parts, and download each split simultaneously even when the full text of a patent or application exceeds 100 pages. PatDL could help you get them precisely and quickly. Multiple connections are opened to each patent, and the result is the most efficient exploitation of the bandwidth available. Whatever your connection, PatDL makes sure that all of the bandwidth is utilized. Thus PatDL could drastically reduces the download time and make your download absolutely easy for any kind of patent or application.
• Continue re-downloading if connection is lost or computer crashes and don’t need to start from the first page again."

Further information about PatDL is available at the SoonerSoft website. A free trial of PatDL is available here.

Australia - Review of National Innovations System

The Australian Federal Department for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research has announced a review of the national innovations system to be conducted by an expert panel. The panel has called for submissions and stakeholder meetings are currently underway around the country.

"The Panel will identify gaps and weaknesses in the innovation system and develop proposals to address them. In particular, it will:

• Identify a set of principles to underpin the role and participation of the public sector in innovation.
• Develop a set of national innovation priorities to complement the national research priorities, ensuring the objectives of research programs and other innovation initiatives are complementary.
• Identify regulatory and other barriers to innovation and recommend ways to minimise these.
• Examine the scope for simplifying and reducing program duplication and ensuring that any support provided is well-targeted and easy to access.
• Consider the appropriateness, effectiveness and efficiency of the Research and Development (R&D) Tax Concession Scheme in promoting innovation and make recommendations to improve innovation outcomes.
• Consider ways to improve the governance of the national innovation system to support higher expectations of government agencies and industry.
• Assess the appropriateness, effectiveness and efficiency of the Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) Program and make recommendations to improve innovation outcomes."

"A Green Paper will be received from the panel by the end of July 2008, and this will be followed by a White Paper response from the Government."

Submissions may be posted or emailed to innovationreview@innovation.gov.au, with the deadline for submission 30 April 2008.

Sources and for further information

IP Australia news - Review of National Innovation System

Department for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research - Review of National Innovation System

Department for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research - Innovation Review Consultation Sessions

Department for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research - Innovation Review: Call for Submissions

Canada - Online trade mark opposition and non-use proceedings

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) has announced further information will be available online in the Canadian Trade-marks Database. The CIPO Opposition Board will provide information on the status of trade mark oppositions and non-use proceedings (also known as "Section 45 cases").

The Canadian Trade-marks Database is available here.

Sources and for further information

Canadian Intellectual Property Office news - Coming Soon: Trade-marks Opposition and Section 45 information available online!