InpadocDB is the world's largest online patent database, containing more than 63 million patents and utility models from 80 patent organisations
This patent file was launched online by Fiz Karlsruhe at the end of April after extensive development work had been successfully completed.
This huge offer of international patent documents - an almost inexhaustible source of scientific and business information - can be accessed via Fiz Karlsruhe's online service STN International.
Its unique collection of about 200 scientific online databases makes STN the leading provider of sci-tech information.
"For innovative companies monitoring technological trends, international markets and competitors, access to comprehensive, reliable patent information is essential," says Rainer Stuike-Prill, vice president marketing and sales at Fiz Karlsruhe.
"At present, no other database provider offers patent information of such high quality.
"InpadocDB significantly enhances our patent information offer".
InpadocDB (international patent documentation data base) currently contains about 63 million documents, with new documents added weekly.
At first sight, this large amount of data seems almost unmanageable.
However, STN International's sophisticated search system allows for very targeted search queries, so that the obtained results precisely answer the searcher's questions.
Efficient software tools help analyse the results - not only shedding light on the state of the art, but also on the market and the competitive environment.
Thus, the information obtained is an excellent basis for strategic business decisions.
It is also advisable to carry out this kind of strategic searching in order to protect one's own patent rights.
Patents and utility models from 80 patent organizations worldwide can be searched in InpadocDB, including patent documents filed with the EPO and the Wipo.
Time coverage for the most important industrialized countries reaches back to the 19th century (for example, USA (1836), GB (1840), D (1879), FR (1900), in case of Japan back to 1944).
Database documents contain bibliographical information on the patent documents and are linked to the full texts available with the document provider.
Patent family information, patent classification, and legal status data are also available.
Thus, users obtain an overview of all important facts related to the patent.
Most documents contain abstracts in English providing quick information on the described invention for which a patent has been filed.
InpadocDB is built from electronic patent data provided by the European Patent Office.
A scientific editorial team at Fiz Karlsruhe checks these data for quality and corrects them, if need be.
Therefore, the InpadocDB documents meet a high quality standard.
Thanks to the homogeneous design of all STN databases, search queries from InpadocDB can easily be transferred to other databases on STN in order to obtain comprehensive search results.
