INPADOC, which stands for International Patent Documentation,
is an international
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...
collection. The
database
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases s ...
is produced and maintained by the
European Patent Office
The European Patent Office (EPO) is one of the two organs of the European Patent Organisation (EPOrg), the other being the Administrative Council. The EPO acts as executive body for the organisation (EPO). It contains
patent families and
legal
Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. ...
status information, and is updated weekly.
INPADOC was founded by the
World Intellectual Property Organization
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO; french: link=no, Organisation mondiale de la propriété intellectuelle (OMPI)) is one of the 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN). Pursuant to the 1967 Convention Establishi ...
(WIPO) and the
government of Austria under an agreement on May 2, 1972. A little less than twenty years later, in 1991, it was integrated into the European Patent Office. An EPO sub-office was then created in
Vienna
en, Viennese
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, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
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, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
, Austria.
The INPADOC database, which is publicly accessible, provides information about patent families, i.e. corresponding patent applications, i.e., patent applications in different countries which claim the same priority and which normally disclose the same invention. It also provides information concerning the legal status of patent applications and patents in those countries which report status changes.
See also
*
Espacenet
Espacenet (formerly stylized as ''esp@cenet'') is a free online service for searching patents and patent applications. Espacenet was developed by the European Patent Office (EPO) together with the member states of the European Patent Organisation. ...
*
International Patent Classification The International Patent Classification (IPC) is a hierarchical patent classification system used in over 100 countries to classify the content of patents in a uniform manner. It was created under the Strasbourg Agreement (1971), one of a number of ...
*
Patent classification A patent classification is a system for examiners of patent offices or other people to categorize (code) documents, such as published patent applications, according to the technical features of their content. Patent classifications make it feasible ...
*
Derwent World Patents Index
The Derwent World Patents Index (DWPI) is a database containing patent applications and grants from 44 of the world's patent issuing authorities.
Compiled in English by editorial staff, the database provides a short abstract detailing the nature ...
*
FIZ Karlsruhe
FIZ Karlsruhe — Leibniz Institute for Information Infrastructure, formerly Fachinformationszentrum Karlsruhe, is a not-for-profit company with the public mission to make sci-tech information from all over the world publicly available and to prov ...
Notes
References
External links
INPADOC pageon the EPO web site
Patent search services
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