Biblioguías: Guide to Forestry: Patents

About patents

What they are
Parts of a patent

Industrial property (like intellectual property) is a monopoly granted by law to the author or inventor, so that they may benefit exclusively from their work for a number of years.

Industrial Property rights allow the holders to decide who can use their property and how. In Spain, these rights are granted through the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (SPTO, also OEPM in Spanish).

Spain has several types of Industrial Property rights, including patents and utility models, which protect inventions of products and processes that can be reproduced and reiterated for industrial purposes.

Patents are a primary source of technological information

Patent documents consist of:

A first page containing bibliographic information, such as the title or name of the invention, name of the inventor, application number and date, etc.
A detailed description of the invention indicating how it is constructed, how it is used and its advantages compared to what already exists.
Claims that provide a clear, concise definition of what the patent legally protects.
Drawings
Sometimes a search report containing documents found by a Patent Office when examining the patentability of the invention.

Where to look for patents

Patents are open documents that should be in the public domain and are freely available on patent office websites.

Patent databases

Invenes: patents in Spain Database created by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (SPTO) to make available technological information found in Spanish and Latin American patent and utility model documents. It contains the INTERPAT and LATIPART databases.
Espacenet Patent database developed by the European Patent Office and Member States. Each state has an Espacenet service in its own language
Patenscope (OMPI - WIPO) Provides access to international Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications in full-text format on the day of publication, and to patent documents from participating national and regional patent offices.
Latipat - Espacenet Free public access point using Espacenet technology to facilitate searches for technical information in patent documents from Latin America and Spain, in Spanish and Portuguese.

Google Patents Google patent search engine, for patents registered in the offices of the USA, China, Canada, Germany, the European Union and the World Intellectual Property Organization.
Google Patents advanced search Google Patents advanced search page
Patent Lens database and academic meta-search engine that brings together patents and academic documents – articles, papers, books, theses – in a unified system that gives each type of document its place on the results page.

Derwent Innovation Index This This link opens a new window for the Web of Science database, providing an overview of existing patents. The Derwent Innovation Index has three sections: the Chemical Section (1980-2009) Electrical and Electronic Section (1980-2009) Engineering Section (1980-2009)
Scopus La mayor base de datos de resúmenes y citas de literatura revisada por pares. Ofrece el panorama más amplio de la producción mundial de investigación en los campos de la ciencia, la tecnología, la medicina, las ciencias sociales y artes y humanidades.

Scopus has agreements with the main international agencies, and references contain links to corresponding agency websites

Useful links on patents

UVa Patents and Intellectual Property Unit The PATENTS AND INTELLECTUAL PROTECTION unit of the University's General Foundation (FUNGE) advises and supports researchers concerning the protection of their research results at UVa.
IPC: International Patent Classification Hierarchical classification system used primarily to classify patent documents (patent applications, granted patent specifications, utility models, etc.) according to technical fields.
BOPI: Official Industrial Property Gazette Published daily by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, the BOPI is the official means of communication regarding administrative acts (applications, notifications and resolutions) involving different types of industrial property.

Organizations

Patent offices have free databases with patent information:

EPO: European Patent Office For European Patents under the European Patent Convention.
EUIPO: European Union Intellectual Property Office EUIPO is responsible for managing EU trademarks and registered Community designs. It works with the IP offices of EU Member States and international partners to ensure that users in Europe and around the world have a similar experience when registering their trademarks and designs.
OEPM: Spanish Patent and Trademark Office The SPTO (OEPM in Spanish ) is the public entity responsible for registering and granting different types of Industrial Property rights.

Specialized patent search engines

Espacenet Patent database, developed by the European Patent Office and Member States. Each Member State has an Espacenet service in its own language.
Espacenet (Spain) SPTO Espacenet: free access to database containing more than 1 million Spanish patent documents
Google Patents Google patent search engine, for patents in the offices of the USA, China, Canada, Germany, the European Union and the World Intellectual Property Organization.
Google Patents advanced search Google Patents advanced search page
Latipat - Espacenet Free public access point using Espacenet technology to facilitate searches for technical information in Spanish and Portuguese on patent documents from Latin America and Spain.