Online patent database adds KoreaPat, a new bibliographic file covering Korean patents, to its product portfolio
Fiz Karlsruhe, one of Europe's leading providers of information services, and European partner of premier science and technology online service STN International, has added KoreaPat, a new bibliographic file covering Korean patents, to its comprehensive product portfolio.
Together with the Japanese patent database Japio, STN now offers two valuable sources of patent information from Asia.
The Korean patents reflect a flourishing economy.
After 40 years of rapid economic development, the Republic of Korea is now one of the important industrialised countries (member of the OECD since 1996).
Ranked by gross national product, the Korean economy is the world's number 12.
KoreaPat (Korean Patent Abstracts), produced by the Korean Institute of Patent Information (Kipi) on behalf of the Korean Intellectual Property Office (Kipo), is a patent database which provides access to Korean patent information from all areas of science and technology in English language.
The database covers Korean examined patents (B-documents) from 1979-2001 and Korean unexamined patents (A-documents) from 2000 onwards. KoreaPat records contain inventor and assignee data, publication information, and International Patent Classification codes. Titles and abstracts in English language, newly phrased by the Kipo, add to the informative value.
More than 440,000 images of representative drawings are also included.
The database currently contains more than 485,000 records and is updated four to five times per year (approx 80,000 new records per year).
Records appear about four months after publication in Korea.
All information in KoreaPat can be accessed through STN's powerful search functions.
Search terms may be entered individually, or logically concatenated in a combined search. Only results matching all predefined criteria are retrieved. Simultaneous left and right truncation (searches using the root of a word, with prefixes and/or suffixes substituted by question marks) is also possible.
Full-text publications on the searched subjects can be ordered online, using the STN Full-Text-Solution providing connections to various document delivery services, or through Fiz Karlsruhe's document delivery broker service Fiz AutoDoc.
The more than 220 databases hosted on STN International can be accessed by dialing in to STN's online service using its powerful proprietary client software, STN Express with Discover (now available in its new, enhanced version 7.01), or over the internet using a standard web browser.
At a later time, KoreaPat may also be available in STN Easy, the point-and-click interface for occasional searchers unfamiliar with the STN command language.
