See the patent Collection Coverage & Update schedule for information on the most recent and next scheduled updates to individual patent collections.
An outstanding variety of patent sources are available for searching, analyzing, and reporting. Following is a high-level summary of the contents of the collections. Click the linked names of the collections for a more detailed description.
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Patents |
Business |
Literature |
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US Granted |
Company |
Web
of Science |
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US Applications |
Market |
Current
Contents Connect |
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European Granted |
Product |
ISI
Proceedings |
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European
Applications |
News |
Inspec |
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Derwent
World Patents Index (DWPI) |
Research |
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German Granted |
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German Applications |
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German Utility
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WIPO Applications |
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British Applications |
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French Applications |
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Japanese
Applications |
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Japanese
Granted |
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Korean Applications |
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Korean
Granted |
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Other Authorities |
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Description: US granted patents
Dates covered: 1836-present
Data type: Full text
Language: English
Update frequency: Weekly
Source: United States Patent and Trademark Office
Prior to 2000, US Granted patents were Kind A. Since 2000, Kind is B1 if the granted patent is the first publication, and B2 if there was a pre-grant publication.
Design patents do not have abstracts.
US Classification is updated 6 times/year.
Front-page drawing coverage: 1997 to date - comprehensive, pre-1997 - partial. (Exception: US Design patents have comprehensive front-page drawing coverage).
Description: US patent applications
Dates covered: March 2001-present
Data type: Full text
Language: English
Update frequency: Weekly
Source: United States Patent and Trademark Office
US Applications were first published in March 2001 they are often referred to as pre-grant publications.
A1 is a patent application.
A2 is a republication of a patent application.
US Classification is updated 6 times/year.
Assignee information is often unavailable at this stage.
Front-page drawing coverage: 2001 to date comprehensive.
Description: European granted patents (EP B) from potentially 31 countries
Dates covered: 1980-present
Data type: Full text
Language: 60% English, 30% German, 10% French
Update frequency: Weekly
Source: European Patent Office
European Patent Office (EPO) is a regional Patent Office, potentially offering protection in 31 countries
Claims are available in 3 languages (French, German, English).
Abstracts are carried over from the "A" record.
Drawings are not included.
Front-page drawing coverage: 1997 to date - comprehensive, pre-1997 - partial. (For Euro-PCT publications, the drawing from the corresponding PCT publication is displayed.)
Description: European patent applications (EP A) from potentially 31 countries
Dates covered: 1978-present
Data type: Full text
Language: 60% English, 30% German, 10% French
Update frequency: Weekly
Source: European Patent Office
European Patent Office (EPO) is a regional Patent Office, potentially offering protection in 31 countries.
PCT applications entering the European phase are republished by the EPO only when the PCT document is in a language other than English, French, or German. Therefore, most Euro-PCTs in the EP database include only front-page data. For this reason, it is advisable to include the PCT database in any EP full text search. (In recent years, more than half of EP applications have been filed through PCT.)
When you are viewing an EP record that has a PCT equivalent, the record will refer to the PCT Publication Number.
Front-page drawing coverage: 1997 to date - comprehensive, pre-1997 - partial. (For Euro-PCT publications, the drawing from the corresponding PCT publication is displayed.)
Description: Enhanced patent data from over 40 worldwide patenting authorities, 15 million inventions, 33 million patents covered, see full coverage and other pertinent information at the Thomson Scientific Support Center
Dates covered: 1963-present
Data type: Full text
Language: English
Update frequency: Approximately every 3 days
Source: Thomson Scientific
DWPI covers more than 15 million inventions from over 40 different international patent-issuing authorities. More than 350 industry specialists in Chemistry, Engineering, Life Science, and Electronics do the classification and indexing. DWPI experts review approximately 27,000 patent documents every week. There are 33 million patent documents currently in the database and 1.5 million records are added each year. DWPI helps simplify and speed your research by providing, among other important features, patent titles and abstracts written in English using clear, consistent, industry-specific terms.
Rewritten patent titles: More comprehensive titles allow you to quickly identify which patents are important to your work. Using patent data from 41 patent-issuing authorities, Derwent subject experts rewrite original patent titles to make them easier to understand and more meaningful and, most significantly, to highlight what is new and unique about each invention.
English abstracts of the original patent: Concise abstracts let you zero in on what makes one patent different from another. Derwent subject matter experts craft 250-500 word English abstracts from patent documents issued in over 30 different languages. Derwent abstracts summarize the claims and disclosures of the inventions and highlight the novelty, use and advantages for each invention.
Sophisticated classification system: With detailed classification searching, you can quickly and easily narrow in on the most relevant patents. Derwent experts employ a sophisticated proprietary system to classify and index the patent records using a wide range of industry, proprietary, and scientific codes. A key benefit of the Derwent classification scheme is that Derwent experts emphasize both the novelty and use of an invention. This process brings you much closer to the real meaning and importance of an invention. And, by allowing you to conduct searches using both Derwent codes and the International Patent Classification (IPC) codes, it is easy for you to leverage the philosophies of the different classification systems to get a more relevant result.
Patent Family information with identification of non-conventional equivalents: Patent families allow you to see all patents related to the same invention. For a given invention, Derwent gathers patent documents from over 40 patent issuing authorities and then provides this information in a concise Patent Family Table for that invention. The Derwent Patent Family also identifies the non-conventional equivalents that occur when a patent is filed outside of the priority deadline. Because of this, you will see all the patents related to the same invention, not just those patents with the same priority date.
Description: German granted patents (DE C)
Dates covered: 1968-present
Data type: Full text
Language: German
Update frequency: Weekly
Source: German Patent and Trademark Office
Entire document, including title and abstract, is in German language.
Pre-2004 coverage includes C1 documents, which are Patent Specifications (Patentschrift or PS) that have not been published at the application stage, and C2 documents, which are Patent Specifications (Patentschrift or PS) that were previously published as A1s.
2004 to date coverage includes B3, which are first publication of application (Patentchrift), B4, which is second publication of application, and C5, which is amended to grant.
Umlauted vowels have been converted to the 2-character equivalent, e.g., oe, ae, ue.
The s-set (ß) character should be searched as a double 's'.
Front-page drawing coverage: 2004 to date - comprehensive.
Description: German patent applications (DE A)
Dates covered: 1968-present
Data type: Full text
Language: German
Update frequency: Weekly
Source: German Patent and Trademark Office
Entire document, including title and abstract, is in German language.
Coverage includes A1 documents, which are Unexamined Patent Applications (Offenlegungsschrift or OS).
Umlauted vowels have been converted to the 2-character equivalent, e.g., oe, ae, ue.
The s-set (ß)character should be searched as a double 's.'
Front-page drawing coverage: 2004 to date - comprehensive.
Description: German utility models (DE U)
Dates covered: 1983-present
Data type: Full text
Language: German
Update frequency: Weekly
Source: German Patent and Trademark Office
Utility models (Gebrauchsmuster). Kind is U1.
Pre-2004 utility model records contain only bibliographic information. Abstracts and full text are not available except in 2004 to date.
Inventors are not listed.
Description: Published international patent applications WO (PCT)
Dates covered: 1978-present
Data type: Full text (91%); bibliographic data only (9%)
Language: 70% English, 15% German, 5% French, 1% Spanish, 9% other
Update frequency: Weekly
Source: World Intellectual Property Organization
Text for PCT Applications has been created by Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. A small percentage of records are absent because they failed to scan. These documents are being reprocessed and added to the database.
Front-page drawing coverage: 1997 to date - comprehensive, pre-1997 partial.
Description: British patent applications (GB A)
Dates covered: 1916-present
Data type: Full text
Language: English
Update frequency: Weekly
Source: The UK Patent Office
Abstracts are available for GB records from 1999 to date only.
Text of GB Applications was created by OCR (Optical Character Recognition). Some misinterpreted characters should be expected.
Front-page drawing coverage: none.
Description: French patent applications (FR A)
Dates covered: 1971-present
Data type: Full text
Language: French
Update frequency: Biweekly
Source: French Patent Office (INPI) or the European Patent Office (EPO)
Coverage is published applications only, including both A1 (published patent applications) and A3 (published utility model applications), and other A-level publications.
Bibliographic data, including abstracts, is provided electronically from the French Patent Office (INPI) or the European Patent Office (EPO.
Text sections are created using OCR (Optical Character Recognition), and some misinterpreted characters should be expected.
Accented characters are indexed without accents; search terms entered with accents will be converted to an unaccented character.
Front-page drawing coverage: 1992 to date - comprehensive.
Description: Japanese patent applications (JP A)
Dates covered: Full text 2003-present; bibliographic 1976-2003
Data type: Full text & bibliographic
Language: English (Machine Assisted Translations)
Update frequency: Monthly
Source: Patent data from the Japan Patent Office (JPO), translation by Thomson Scientific
Description: Japanese granted patents (JP B)
Dates covered: Full text 2005-present; limited coverage 1998-2004
Data type: Full text
Language: English (Machine Assisted Translations)
Update frequency: Monthly
Source: Patent data from the Japan Patent Office (JPO), translation by Thomson Scientific
Description: Korean patent applications (KR A)
Dates covered: Bibliographic, unexamined applications from 2000-present; bibliographic, examined applications 1979-present
Language: English
Source: KIPI
Description: Korean granted patents (KR B)
Dates covered: Bibliographic, 1979-present
Language: English
Source: KIPI
Description: INPADOC data covering 60+ countries in addition to those shown as individual collections, see complete details of coverage at the EPO Patent Center
Dates covered: Bibliographic, 1920-present
Language: English
Source: European Patent Office (EPO)
Description: Essential details about company ownership, location, trading activities, multiple year financial information, and annual reports
Use it to: Find pertinent details on companies
Source: Thomson Gale Group Company Information®
Dates covered: Current
Update frequency: Daily
File size: 379,319 companies as of January 2006
Gale Group Company Intelligence, a combined directory and company news file published by The Gale Group, contains current address, financial, and marketing information on more than 140,000 private and public U.S. companies and 30,000 international companies. Over 130,000 of the U.S. companies are listed in the eight-volume set of the 1998 Ward's Business Directory. The international company directory records are derived from print directories published by Graham & Whiteside Limited of London. The database contains headquarter, single-location, and division information for both U.S. and international companies.
The database also contains up to 10 of the most recent news references on each company found in over 5,000 journals, magazines, and newspapers indexed by The Gale Group. Indication of full-text availability and the location of additional citations are listed in each record.
Companies included in Gale Group Company Intelligence are not subject to any minimum revenue criteria. The database covers all types of commercial and industrial companies, more than 90% of which are privately held. Emerging companies reported for the first time in the news are posted in the database as "flash" records within as little as 24 hours. The full company record follows soon after. News stories are obtained from other Gale databases on DIALOG.
Description: Article and report summaries covering many aspects of industry and economic indicators
Use it to: Find pertinent details on companies
Source: Thomson Gale TableBase
Dates covered: 1997-present
Update frequency: Weekly, approximately 1,000 records per month
File size: 97,481 records as of January 2006
TableBase database contains tabular information dealing with companies, products, industries, brands, markets, demographics, and countries from around the world. All records contain a table and the originating textual article when available. The table is the focus of this database. Every table is enhanced with an informative table title and indexing for easy retrieval.
TableBase is international in scope and covers 90 industries. The tabular data is derived from privately published statistical annuals, data from trade associations, non-profit research groups, government agencies, international organizations, industry reports prepared by investment research groups, and source publications.
Information in the file covers current year, historical data, time series, and forecasts for:
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Description: Information about ownership of products and coverage of press releases relating to product launches and other product-related news
Use it to: Find the complete text of product related corporate press releases
Source: Thomson Gale TableBase
Dates covered: 1985-present
Update frequency: Daily
File size: 3,280,463 records as of February 2006
Gale Group New Product Announcements/Plus (NPA/PLUS) contains the full text of press releases from all industries covering announcements related to products, with a focus on new products and services. In addition to product descriptions, press releases generally contain key details about new products and technologies, including technical specifications, availability, uses, licensing agreements, distribution channels, and prices. Company contacts and phone numbers are provided to allow follow-up by interested parties. The press releases contained in the NPA/PLUS database are obtained directly from the product manufacturer, distributor, or an authorized marketing representative.
The NPA/PLUS database provides information on the introduction of new products and services in all areas, including:
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Description: Retrospective coverage of market, company, product, and industry news
Use it to: Find breaking news, to keep current on continuing stories, to find information on regions of the world
Source: Dialog NewsRoom
Dates covered: 2000 to most current 3-4 months
Update frequency: Most current: Multiple times per day; 2006: Intra-day, number of records vary; 2000-20005: Irregular
File size: 3,280,463 records as of February 2006
Dialog NewsRoom is a comprehensive, global news source that covers the leading newspapers, business magazines, and newswires from all regions of the world, including emerging markets. This robust database is comprised of abstracts and fulltext records from the world's important trade, business, and scholastic journals, local newspapers, regional business publications, national and international business newspapers, industry newsletters, broadcast transcripts, and corporate news releases.
Dialog NewsRoom is enhanced with rich indexing that enables highly specific retrieval of relevant articles.
The database contains a wide variety of sources compiling 11,000 different publications in one place. Publications found in Dialog NewsRoom include the full text of The New York Times and The Financial Times combined with a deep collection of newswires, newspapers, and business publications. All sources are continually updated to maximize your online research effectiveness.
Dialog NewsRoom covers a wide variety of topics including:
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Geographic coverage is worldwide, including:
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Description: Summaries of the type of research conducted; summary of affiliated government agencies for research organizations and universities; directories of funding groups and organizations
Use it to: Identify worldwide organizations conducting research or providing research services
Source: Gale Group Research Centers and Services Directory
Dates covered: Current file corresponds to this year's print edition of the directory
Update frequency: Annual (reload)
File size: 31,754 organizations as of January 2006
The Research Centers and Services Directory is a comprehensive source of detailed information on over 27,500 organizations conducting research worldwide. It corresponds to the print Research Centers Directory family of publications: Research Centers Directory,which covers over 14,000 university-based and other nonprofit research facilities in the U.S. and Canada;International Research Centers Directory, which covers over 9,700 non-U.S. research organizations in approximately 145 countries; Government Research Directory, which covers more than 5,500 research units of the U.S. and Canadian federal governments, and New Research Centers, an inter edition update covering some 800 newly identified research centers. The Research Centers and Services Directory database provides full contact information and descriptions of university, independent nonprofit, government, and commercial research and development centers, institutes, laboratories, bureaus, test facilities, experiment stations, research parks, foundations, councils, and other organizations that support and conduct research worldwide.
Research units in nearly every field of research activity are described. Organizations from Research Centers Directory are grouped into the following general categories (numbers refer to corresponding section heading codes:
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Description: Thomson Scientific product offering retrospective searching of scientific literature
Use it to: Find current and retrospective science, social sciences, and arts and humanities information
Source: Thomson Scientific
Dates covered: Science Citation Index 1987-present; Social Sciences Citation Index 1987-present; Arts and Humanities Citation Index 1987-present
Update frequency: Weekly
File size: 38 million records
With Web of Science, researchers at your institution can find current and retrospective science, social sciences, and arts and humanities information from nearly 9,300 of the most prestigious, high impact research journals in the world.
Web of Science provides access to all significant items within each research journal covered, including articles, bibliographies, book reviews, corrections and additions, discussions, editorials, fiction and prose, items about individuals, letters, meeting abstracts, notes, poetry, review papers, and reviews of computer software, hardware, and databases.
Web of Science contains over 38 million records and provides over 1.5 million records and more than 23 million cited references per year from more than 230 disciplines in science, the social sciences, and the arts and humanities.
Science Citation Index Expanded" 1987 - present; author abstracts available from 1991 forward
Social Sciences Citation Index® 1987 - present; author abstracts available from 1992 forward
Arts & Humanities Citation Index® 1987 - present; author abstracts available from 2000 forward
Description: Complete bibliographic information from over 8,000 leading scholarly journals and more than 2,000 books
Use it to: Find current research literature
Source: Thomson Scientific
Dates covered: 1998-present
Update frequency: Data is updated daily, per business week
Current Contents Connect is a multidisciplinary current awareness resource providing access to complete bibliographic information from over 8,000 of the world's leading scholarly journals and more than 2,000 books.
Researchers will benefit from a powerful searching and browsing environment that helps them to stay up to date in their specialties.
Provides a complete picture of today's global research with the combination of comprehensive coverage of both journal and Web literature.
Saves time by providing a variety of research data including author abstracts, author addresses, and more information per bibliographic record than in other resources.
Description: Thomson Scientific product covering over 4 million papers from over 60,000 conferences, includes both the Science & Technology and Social Science & Humanities editions
Use it to: Find proceedings literature
Source: Thomson Scientific
Dates covered: 1990-present
Update frequency: Weekly
ISI Proceedings helps researchers access the published literature from the most significant conferences, symposia, seminars, colloquia, workshops, and conventions worldwide, so they can track emerging ideas and new research beyond what is covered in journal literature. Approximately 70% of the information in ISI Proceedings is not covered in scientific journals, so this rich resource helps users discover research ideas as they are first presented.
With enhanced coverage of books and meeting abstracts, especially in key areas such as engineering, chemistry, physics, and biology, this resource enables users to explore developing concepts via two editions, Science & Technology, and Social Sciences & Humanities:
These two editions cover nearly 250 categories, with over 4.4 million records, and content from more than 12,000 conferences each year
Updated weekly, with over 385,000 records added each year
Extracts 73% of its data from books and the remaining 27% from journal coverage, which complements the information covered in Web of Science
Includes conference papers from books, journals, and series produced by publishers and societies
ISI Proceedings users can:
Access initial published findings about new research or concepts
Verify citations to papers presented at conferences
Find papers not published in the journal literature
Conduct retrospective searches on authors, institutions, and organizations as well as subjects
Track the reported research for a given subject
Make acquisition decisions about proceedings
Determine whether the proceedings of a given meeting were published and where
Description: Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) bibliographic database
Use it to: Find relevant journal articles, conference papers and other documents for current awareness, new product information, technological forecasting, competitive intelligence, or patent-related searching
Source: Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET)
Dates covered: 1898-present
Update frequency: Weekly
File size: 9.5 million records
Inspec, the world's leading bibliographic information service providing access to the world's scientific and technical literature, is produced by The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). Updated weekly, it provides current, in-depth, global coverage of the technical literature in physics, electrical engineering, electronics, communications, control engineering, computers, computing, information technology, manufacturing and production engineering.
Inspec is the leading English-language bibliographic information service providing access to the world's scientific and technical literature in physics, electrical engineering, electronics, communications, control engineering, computers and computing, information technology, production, manufacturing and mechanical engineering.
More than 9,500,000 bibliographic records from publications worldwide
Over 500,000 new records added each year
3,850 scientific and technical journals, plus books, reports, and 2,000 conference proceedings