European Patent Office

INPADOC (International Patent Documentation Center) is the most comprehensive tttbliographic database of scientific and technological patent documents in the world. The stock encompasses more than 26 miUion patent documents, more than 59 miUion legal status data, and about 10 million patent famihes (January, 2003). The database contains more than 35 milhon patent citations from 71 patent-issuing organizations (European Patent Office, World Intellectual Property Organization (WlPO)) and is updated weekly with about 40 000 new citations. 

The database is produced by the European Patent Office and is provided by the host FIZ Karlsruhe (Germany). 

INPADOC European Patent Office, Vienna Branch Office, Austria international patents biblio. 26mio records, 35 mio citations, 59mio legal status patent offices STN commercial online weekly mvw.european- patent-offi- ce.org/inpadoc/... 

Propriete IndustrieUe (INPI) European Patent Office... 

INPADOC European Patent Office Dialog, Orbit, STN patent family and legal status... 

EPAT. The European Patents Register is produced by the European Patent Office (EPO) and the Institut National de la Propriete IndustrieHe (INPI). The database provides bibhographic, including the first claim of granted (BI) patents, and legal status information on aH European patents and published appHcations. Coverage is from June 1978, the beginning of EP publication, and now iacludes over 450,000 records. Tides oa aH records and... 

The European Patent office ESPACE series of CD-ROM products Table 11. ESPACE Series of CD-ROM Databases are summarized ia Table 11. 

Guidelines for Examination in the European Patent Offiice, European Patent Office, Munich, Germany, 1985. 

European Patent Office (EPO) single patent covering multiple countries tended to supplant national patent offices increased share of English-language pubHcations... 

European Patents DIALOG, STN European Patent Office EPO full bibliographic data abstract and first cl aim text in English, French, and German full text of published application and granted patent in original language plaimed prosecution and status data... 

Chinese Patent Abstracts DIALOG, ORBIT European Patent Office China bibhographic data and English language abstract... 

Most new patent cases of interest are pubHshed by at least one of the U.S., European, or Japanese patent offices, and WIPO (PCT). Japan presents problems for those not able to read Japanese, but the U.S. Official Ga tte (with representative claims) and PCT Ga tte (with English-language abstracts) can be in one s hands within a week of patent pubHcation. Similar timing is available for the European Patent Office bulletin which contains trilingual tides and the on-line EPAT file and various CD-ROM products. A highly effective alerting program can be developed from a combination of these methods. 

In a further case relating to the structure of data stored on or in a record carrier used in a picture retrieval system, the European Patent Office s Boards of Appeal have considered the issue of patentability of a data structure [22]. Initially the patent application had been rejected on the grounds that the presentation of data was excluded from patentability (see above). However, in accepting an appeal filed by the patent applicant, the Board pointed out that there was a difference between the functional data, which controlled the technical working of the system, and the cognitive information, which represented the picture that could be retrieved and displayed. The Board stated that functional data relates to data that control the technical operation of the system. These data do not relate to the presentation of information, and thus data structures containing this information should be patentable. On the other hand, the cognitive information relates to the picture that could be retrieved and displayed. 

European Patent Office Press Release. European Patent Office continues to advocate harmonisation in the field of CII patents, 6 July 2005. Accessible at http //www.european-patent-office.org/news/pressrel/2005 07 06 e.htm Programs for Computers in Guidelines for Examination in the European Patent Office, Part C, Chapter IV, Nr. 53, European Patent Office, October 2001. Available at URL http //www.european-patent office.org/legal/gui lines/e/index.htm 12. European Patent Convention, Art 52 (2). Available from URL http //www. european-patent-office.Org/legal/epc/e/ar52.html A52... 

European Patent Convention, Art. 52 (2) (a). Available from URL http //www. european-patent-office.Org/legal/epc/e/ar52.html A52 See Ref. 10. 

Today, nearly every important reagent or method reported in the literature has a patent or patent application associated with it, especially if it has potential commercial value. A search of the patent databases, such as the United States Patent and Trademark Office (http //www. uspto.gov/) or the European Patent Office (http //ep.espacenet.com/) for key words or the potential names of inventors can provide a list of any existing issued patents or patent applications related to a bioconjugate technique or compound. In addition, a fee-based service such as Delphion is particularly effective at finding patents related to any subject matter (http //www. delphion.com/). 

When in 1994 the US and European patent offices recognized that the doped sol-gel technology had been invented by David Avnir and colleagues, granting the Hebrew University of Jerusalem a series of patents covering the generic methodology for the preparation of sol-gel materials, and their use in various applications, the time was ripe for the foundation of the first sol-gel chemical companies. 

Applications can either be made separately in every country where protection is sought - a process that is both costly and time consuming - or imder one of the international conventions that exist. The one most relevant to UK applicants is the European Patent Convention (EPC). Under this, an application is made to the European Patent Office in Munich, designating the signatory states in which a patent is required. This replaces the procedures in the National Patent Offices and results, upon acceptance of the application, in separate national patents in each of the designated states. All European Community Member States are parties. It should be noted that there is no single patent available for all the European Community countries a so-called Community Patent is envisaged for the future, but is still some way off. 

In general, a patent can be granted for an invention which is new (the novelty requirement), is not obvious (the inventive step requirement), is commercially or industrially useful (the utility requirement) and is not otherwise barred by law from being the subject of a patent (for example, at least at the European Patent Office (EPO) plant and animal varieties are not patentable, and inventions the publication or exploitation of which are contrary to morahty are not patentable). The requirements for a patentable invention are outlined in Table 12.1. 

Claims to products defined by a particular state of purity may cause difficulties at the European Patent Office where it has been held that a known product does not necessarily acquire novelty merely by virtue of the fact that it is prepared in a purer form However, if the claim is directed to product defined in terms of a technical feature e g. specific activity not present in the less pure known product, the potential difficulty may be overcome. The situation may be different in the USA where it has been held that purification of a protein to homogeneity was enough to distinguish a claim over a prior disclosure of only unpurified mixtures of native protein. 

A more detailed discussion on EPO and US case law relating to biotechnological inventions can be found in The European Patent Office s Case Law on the Patentability of Biotechnology Inventions , Jaenichen, H.-R., Carl Heymanns Verlag KG, Koln, Germany. 

Various Websites provide information on patents. These include the European Patent Office site (www.european-patent-office.org) which includes a non-exhaustive directory of other patent Websites the MicroPatent site (www.micropat.com) the IBM Patent... 

Hie European Patent office ESPACE scries of CD-ROM products are ESPACE-EP. ESPACE-FiRST. ESPACE-UK. ESPACE-WORLD. and ESPACE-ACCESS. 

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