Patent office

Maikush structures are mainly used in patents, for protecting compounds related to an invention. The first generic claim, submitted by Markush, was granted in 1924 by the US Patent Office [87-90]. 

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). 

CA FUe Chemical Abstracts Service biochemistry, chemistry, and chemical engineering bibho. >21mio substances >25mio sequences 9000 journals, 37 patent offices, proceedings, books STN commercial CD-ROM, online weekly www.cas.org... 

DETHERM Dechema e.V, FIZ Chemie Berlin GmbH diermophysi-cal properties nu- meric, factual, biblio. 442000 records, 57000 biblio. journals, patent offices, proceedings, books STN in-house, online twice a year wuw.dechem- a.de... 

BIOSIS BIOSIS (USA) Biological Abstracts biosdences/ biomedical biblio. 13mio journals, patent offices, proceed- ings. books STN online weekly www.hiosis.OTg... 

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/... 

JAPIO Japanese Patent Office, Japan Japanese patent information biblio. 7.7 mio records, 5.1 mio images patent abstracts, INPA- DOC STN commercial CD-ROM, online monthly www.cas.org/ ONLINE/ DBSS/ja- pioss.html... 

WPINDEX Derwent Information, Ltd., UK international patents biblio. 13 mio patent offices, patent docu- ments Thomson Inc. online commercial weekly www.derwent.- com/... 

Defensive Publ. U.S. Patent Office 658 325 Chem. Abstr., 71, 22918. 

Propriete IndustrieUe (INPI) European Patent Office... 

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

PATOSDE Wda Vedag Wi1h1m Lampl GmH STN citations to patents from the German Patent Office (Deutsches Patentamt)... 

U.S. Patents. This file, produced by Derwent, Inc., covers U.S. patents from 1971 to the present. The database iacludes all bibliographic and front page information and the text of all claims. (Prom 1971 to 1974 the claims from many patents were not available from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) source tapes, and therefore are not iacluded.) The complete cl aim text can be searched from 1971 but can be ptinted only from 1982. Tides and patentee names are present ia their original form, aeither expanded nor standardized. There is no enhanced iadexiag. Examiner citations are directly searchable, and USPTO classification is updated when the tapes are received from the Patent Office. 

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... 

JAPIO. This database is produced by the Japan Patent Information Organization and is based on the Patent Abstracts of Japan provided by the Japanese Patent Office. The database is updated monthly and contains all Kokai Tokyo Kobo (pubUshed unexamined patent appHcations) pubUshed as of October 1976. Records appear ia JAPIO approximately six months after pubhcation of the unexamined patent appHcation. English language abstracts are provided for the majority of appHcations filed by Japanese appHcants. AppHcations by non-Japanese appHcations do not have abstracts, but bibliographic information is iacluded. Searchable fields iaclude the International Patent Office Classification and JAPIO classification (96). 

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

Fig. 3. Timeline for examination in the United States Patent Office.

The patentee should develop and implement a poHcy for auditing its patent portfoHo in the process of paying maintenance fees to the U.S. PTO. This practice should also be used to justify the further payment of aimuities to foreign national patent offices. Maintenance fees and aimuities can constitute a substantial portion of funds expended in the protection of patents over a year s time. Further, without a tangible, real commercial value or advantage stemming from the patent, there may be Htde justification for maintaining the patent over its last five years of life. 

These amendments to the appHcation can be made in English. The Examiner reviews the appHcant s submissions and issues a final written opinion on the patentabiHty of the appHcation. At this time, the appHcant must pursue national filings within those national and regional patent offices in which the appHcant intends to obtain protection. Copies of the PCT patent appHcation and written opinion are then distributed to the National Patent Office by the World International Patent Office (WIPO). 

L. Horowitz, Patent Office Rules and Practice, Matthew Bender and Co., 1992. 

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

The changes have been in patent documents themselves as weU as in the means of documentation. The need to cope with a rapidly increasing volume of patent appHcations led a number of patent offices to switch, mostiy between 1964 and 1979, from a system in which all appHcations were examined and only those found to be worthy were issued a patent, to a system in which all appHcations are published and may or may not be examined at a later date or will ever become a patent. In the 1940s most pubHshed patent documents were patents in the 1990s most are unexamined appHcations. 

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

Printed Patent Office Gazettes. The issuance of patents is announced by patent offices ia pubHcations typically known as ga2ettes and bulletins, which are pubHshed most commonly at the time of the patent s pubHcation, but there are exceptions. Advance information is pubHshed ia a patent ga2ette by some countries prior to the pubHcation of patent documents, typically as a notification of filing details. However, some patent ga2ettes do not appear until weU after the effective pubHcation date of the patents they announce. 

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