Featured Resource: Delphion
Posted on Tue, Jul 19, 2011
This week’s featured resource is Delphion. Like Thomson Innovation, which we profiled last month, Delphion is owned by Thomson Reuters. It is a well-established patent search system, with a rich history and a large number of exclusive features.
World Wide Patent Database
Delphion’s biggest strength as a patent search system is its global catalog. The database holds patents granted from every major office in the world. This allows researchers to check for prior art from any international source, all with just one search. Delphion provides links to non-patent literature mentioned in the patents, eliminating inefficiency and highlighting possible leads for searchers.
Since Delphion is, as mentioned, owned by Thomson Reuters, it is able to draw on that company’s large amount of resources. One such advantage that Thomson Reuters gives Delphion is access to the Derwent World Patent Index. This index holds both patent applications and grants from over forty patent issuing authorities across the globe. The patent applications the DWPI offers can be especially helpful in the search for prior art, as they are published almost nowhere else. The database summarizes each patent and also re-writes the titles to optimize searching. While the DWPI can be an extremely useful tool, it can also be expensive, as users have to pay on a per-search basis.
User Training
Delphion does a very good job of supporting and teaching its users. While Delphion is regarded as a straightforward database to learn, the effort Thomson Reuters has gone through to ease the process simplifies Delphion even more. Delphion offers both live seminars and recorded webinars dedicated to educating researchers about using the system. The webinars are free to watch at any time, and are catered towards a wide variety of users. While there are videos for beginners, such as how to do a basic search, there are also in depth sessions for some of Delphion’s more advanced features. The videos can be watched in a number of different languages, emphasizing Delphion’s commitment to a global patent search experience.
Some of Delphion’s features are available for free, but many of the more sophisticated search techniques require either a subscription or work under a “pay as you search” system. You can learn more about their payment plans here.
For an in-depth discussion of Delphion and its additional features, Intellogist has a great profile of the database. Good luck researching!