The World Intellectual Property Organisation's (WIPO) database of patents has been enlarged making it easier and cheaper to search for patent information.
WIPO’s online database Patentscope, which currently hosts data on more than 1.6 million international patent applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), has been extended to include several new collections of national and regional patent information.
This includes the patents of eight patent offices: the African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation (ARIPO), Cuba, Israel, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa and Vietnam. The WIPO has been working closely with these patent offices to make the collections fully searchable.
The expansion means it is possible to conduct high-quality, detailed and free-of-charge searches of the patent information of the participating offices, much of which had previously not been digitised and was not easily searchable.
This move is part of the WIPO’s commitment to supporting the development of a fully integrated global IP infrastructure, and to increase participation by developing countries in the knowledge economy.
The expanded Patentscope platform provides tools that enable a high-level analysis of technology trends, as well as country and company-level patenting trends.
Article Published November 23rd, 2009
