Patent Quality Matters | Article One Partners Blog

Featured Resource: Esp@cenet

  

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The European Patent Office’s Esp@cenet search is one of the highest-regarded free search tools available.  It offers full-text search for European patents and searchable bibliographic patent information from all over the world.  It is a favorite among our Researchers, thanks to its wide scope of data coverage, and its frequently updated value-added services that continually improve user experience.

Easy To Use

Perhaps the most valuable aspect of Esp@cenet is its ease of use.  Intellogist calls the site's search function “highly user-friendly, with a simple interface and an abundance of quick help topics available right from every page.”  Furthermore, Esp@cenet has created an interactive education tool that offers detailed walkthroughs of nearly every feature on the site, a service that comes recommended by our Researchers. 

Access to Non-Patent Literature

A key feature of Esp@cenet that is of interest to Researchers is the ability to view non-patent literature that has been cited or otherwise collected by European patent officers.  As many of our successful Researchers know, non-patent literature is often the key to finding prior art.  Patent search tools like Esp@cenet are great for preliminary searches that help to develop search strings and guide one's research process.  Those initial searches are often a means to finding key phrases to use in searching at local libraries, book collections, textbooks, and academic papers.  Esp@cenet combines those functions by offering access to patent and non-patent literature all on the same interface.

For example, if a Researcher finds patent literature with a cited reference to non-patent literature, it should provide an “XP” serial number that indicates the piece of non-patent literature referenced.  The Researcher can then put that serial number into the Esp@cenet search function and find the literature right at his or her fingertips.  This eliminates the need for extensive search for the PDF document or hard-copy book.  Non-patent literature found on Esp@cenet can provide bibliographic references and citations to other non-patent literature in related fields, or maybe even yield prior art in the text itself!

For a more detailed report, and community reports on many other patent search tools, visit Intellogist.com, one of Article One's favorite sources for patent research information!