1. Knowing the different patent bases

Our aim is not to provide an exhaustive description of existing databases, but to quickly describe those that will be most useful for using patent information to innovate and monitor your environment.

While the majority of national patent offices are developing their own databases, these remain sector-specific on the one hand, and are not necessarily open access on the other.

There are also fee-based patent databases, such as the one produced by WPIL, which can be accessed via various servers (Questel-Orbit, STN, Dialog, etc.). These databases often include additional elements created during the indexing of the records, but in our opinion they remain reserved for companies working at the license filing level, as the costs of accessing and downloading the records are high.

We believe that three databases are essential....