Comparison of Free
Technology Information
Databases
Jerusalem
21 July
2010
Alex Riechel
Associate Officer, Innovation and Technology Support Section
Overview
Finding patent information (patent databases)
Finding scientific and technical information (search
engines)
Accessing scientific and technical information
Finding patent information
PATENTSCOPE® search
service
esp@cenet
JPO IPDL
USPTO PatFT/AppFT
Coverage : General distinctions
Patent collections
Which countries or regions?
Document types
Patent applications? Granted patents? More?
Document elements
Bibliographic data? Descriptions? Claims?
Time period
Languages
Multiple language versions? Translations?
Patent databases : Collections
PATENTSCOPE® search service :
PCT
8 national and regional collection (Israel)
esp@cenet :
EPC + EPC member states (37)
Around 50 other national and regional collection
(Israel)
Patent databases : Collections
JPO IPDL :
Japan only
USPTO PatFT/AppFT :
US only
PATENTSCOPE® search service : Coverage
All WO applications from 1978
Titles (EN and FR) : from 1978
Abstracts (EN and FR) : from 1978
Int. Cl. : from 1978
Full-text : from 1978
USPTO PatFT/AppFT : Coverage
Granted US patents from 1790 (PatFT)
Published US applications from 2001 (AppFT)
Titles (EN) : from 1976
Abstracts (EN) : from 1976
Int. Cl. : from 1976
US Cl. : from 1790
Full-text : from 1976
USPTO PatFT/AppFT Search
JPO IPDL : Coverage
JP patent specifications from 1885
Examined JP applications from 1922
Published JP applications from 1975
Granted JP patents from 1996
Titles (EN) : from 1976
Abstracts (EN) : from 1976  PAJ
JP Cl. (FI/F-terms) : from 1885
Full-text : from 1993
esp@cenet : Coverage
All EP applications from 1978
Titles (EN and original) : from 1978
Abstracts (EN and original) : from 1978
Int. Cl. : from 1978
EP Cl. (ECLA) : from 1978
Full-text : from 1978
esp@cenet : Coverage
Other applications/patents vary in availability
Titles (EN and original) : various
Abstracts (EN and original) : various
Int. Cl. : various
EP Cl. (ECLA) : various
Full-text : various
esp@cenet : Coverage
United Kingdom coverage ()
esp@cenet : Coverage
Italy coverage ()
esp@cenet : Coverage
Israel coverage
Comparison : PATENTSCOPE vs.
esp@cenet (IL coverage)
PATENTSCOPE
(1900-2009)
esp@cenet
(1965-2000)
Biblio. Data
Abstracts
Full-text
Images
EN/HE
Yes
(2000-2010)
Yes
Yes
EN
No
No
Yes
(1970-1990)
PATENTSCOPE® : Simple search
Search by single criterion (text, number, classification, name,
publication date)
Select language, stemming
PATENTSCOPE® : Structured search
Search by multiple criteria
Basic Boolean operators : AND, OR
Select collection, language, stemming
PATENTSCOPE® : Structured search
Search by multiple criteria
Basic Boolean operators : AND, OR
Select collection, language, stemming
PATENTSCOPE® : Structured search
Search by multiple criteria
Command-line language (field codes, Boolean and other operators)
Select collection, language, stemming
PATENTSCOPE® : Advanced search –
Field codes
Serial numbers
Titles
Abstract
Patent classification
Dates
Applicant data
Inventor data
Legal data
Language
esp@cenet : Quick search
Search in title/abstract, applicant/inventor, or full-text (EP, WO only)
Select collection (EP, WO, all)
Limited to four search terms, no operators
esp@cenet : Advanced search
Search by multiple criteria (full-text available for EP, WO only)
Select collection (EP, WO, all)
Limited to four search terms per field, no operators
esp@cenet : Smart search
Search by multiple criteria (full-text available for EP, WO only)
Command-line search (field codes, Boolean operators)
Limited to four search terms, no selection of collections
esp@cenet : Smart search – Field codes
Serial numbers
Titles
Abstract
Patent classification
Applicant/inventor name
Citation data
JPO IPDL : Keyword search
JPO IPDL : Advanced search
JPO IPDL : Patent Abstracts of Japan (PAJ)
JPO IPDL : PAJ Records
USPTO PatFT/AppFT : Boolean Search
USPTO PatFT/AppFT : Manual Search
USPTO PatFT/AppFT : Manual Search –
Field codes
Patent databases : Syntax –
Wildcard operators
PATENTSCOPE® search service : *
esp@cenet : *
JPO IPDL : [implied wildcard]
USPTO : $
PATENTSCOPE® search service : ? (string of length 1)
esp@cenet : ? (string of length 0 to 1)
esp@cenet : # (string of length 1)
Patent databases : Syntax –
Serial number format
PATENTSCOPE® search service :
WO/1998/059529 (new standard)
WO/98/59529 (original standard)
1998/059529 (without office code)
WO1998059529 (without slashes)
Or any combination thereof…
esp@cenet :
WO9859529 (original standard, no slashes)
9859529 (without office code)
Patent databases : Syntax –
Serial number format
USPTO : Patent numbers
861,799 (original format)
861799 (without commas)
USPTO : Application document numbers
20010000044 (four-digit year + seven-digit serial)
Patent databases : Flexibilities – Boolean
operators
AND
OR
ANDNOT
XOR
PATENTSCOPE
x
x
x
x
esp@cenet
x
x
x
JPO IPDL
x
x
USPTO
x
x
x
Patent databases : Flexibilities – Other
operators
Proximity
Range
PATENTSCOPE
Unordered
Date
Number
Name
esp@cenet
Ordered
Unordered
Date
Number
USPTO
Date
Additional
Fuzzy search
PATENTSCOPE® search service : National
phase entry data
esp@cenet : INPADOC legal status
JPO IPDL : Legal status search
IPR type
Doc type
Number
JPO IPDL : Legal status search
Examination data (grant status, citations, etc.)
Post-grant data (payment status, etc.)
USPTO : Patent Application Information
Retrieval (PAIR)
esp@cenet : Patent families
esp@cenet : Citations
Backward citations (to earlier documents)
Forward citations (from later documents)
esp@cenet : Machine translation
Languages supported : English, French, German, Italian, Spanish
esp@cenet : Machine translation
JPO IPDL : Machine Translation
JPO IPDL : Machine Translation
PATENTSCOPE® search service : Analysis
tools
Clustering
PATENTSCOPE® search service : Analysis
tools
Graphical analysis
Finding scientific and technical information
Google Scholar
Scirus
Entrez
Search engines : Coverage
Google Scholar (poorly documented)
webpages, journal articles, books
Scirus (moderately well documented)
“science-related” webpages
“special sources” (journal articles, patents, etc.)
Entrez (extremely well documented)
journal articles, books (biomedical and related fields)
chemical structures, protein and gene sequences, etc.
Scirus : Advanced Search
Scirus : Features
Field searches (article title, journal title, author name,
author affiliation, keyword, ISSN, URL fragment)
Example: author:smith
Boolean operators (AND, OR, ANDNOT, +, - )
Example: plastic AND bicycle
Example: DNA -sequencing
Scirus : Features
Phrases
Example: “electric car”
Truncation (right, internal, left; single character, unlimited
characters)
Example: car*  car, cars, carbon
Example: car?  car, cars, cart
Example: alumin?um  aluminum, aluminium
Example: *capsul*  capsule, capsules, encapsulate,
encapsulation
Scirus : Features
Filtering (date, information type, file format, content
source, subject area)
 advanced search only
Results filtering (suggested keywords)
Scirus : Filtering
Scirus : Results filtering
Google Scholar : Advanced search
Google Scholar : Features
Field searches (title, author)
Example: author:jones
Boolean and logical operators (OR, +, - )
Example: tennis ball OR racket
Example: vaccine -human
Phrases
Example: “plastic bicycle”
Proximity operator
Example: “treatment * cancer”
Filtering (date, journal title, subject area)
 advanced search only
Google Scholar : Features
Citations
Results grouping (additional versions)
Google Scholar : Caution
Indexing not always accurate
(especially in older documents)
 irrelevant results
Keyword “aspirin”? Published in 1845?
Entrez : All databases search
Entrez PubMed : Features
Field searches
Article title, journal title, author name, keyword, etc.
Also: Gene name, protein name, substance name,
organism, accession number, CAS/Enzyme
Commission registry number
Example: 58-08-2[ECNO]
 CAS registry number 58-08-2 (caffeine)
Entrez PubMed
Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT)
Phrases
Filtering (full-text/abstract, article type, language, journal
type, subject area, human/animal, male/female, age)
MeSH
Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
Anatomy [A]
Organisms [B]
Diseases [C]
Chemicals and Drugs [D]
Analytical, Diagnostic and Therapeutic Techniques and Equipment [E]
Psychiatry and Psychology [F]
Phenomena and Processes [G]
Disciplines and Occupations [H]
Anthropology, Education, Sociology and Social Phenomena [I]
Technology, Industry, Agriculture [J]
Humanities [K]
Information Science [L]
Named Groups [M]
Health Care [N]
Publication Characteristics [V]
Geographicals [Z]
MeSH : Example
D Chemicals and Drugs
D08 Enzymes and Coenzymes
D08.811 Enzymes
D08.811.600 Multienzyme Complexes
D08.811.600.541 Lactose Synthase
Thank you for your attention!
For more information, please contact:
patentscope@wipo.int
Websites : Patent databases
WIPO (PATENTSCOPE® search service)
http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/
EPO (esp@cenet)
http://www.espacenet.com/
JPO IPDL
http://www.ipdl.inpit.go.jp/
USPTO
http://patft.uspto.gov/
And many more
http://www.wipo.int/patentscope/en/search/
national_databases.html
Websites : Science and technology search
engines
Google Scholar
http://scholar.google.com
Scirus
http://www.scirus.com
Entrez PubMed
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Entrez/
MeSH Browser
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html