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IPO Launches Patent Databases
27 November 2012
Two databases have been launched which will enable anyone wishing to use an invention to find out if their use is legal. The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has published the database of patents, according to Pinsent Masons’ Out-Law.com law blog.
One is a database of patents which are available for licensing. The other is a collection of inventions whose patents have expired, and therefore which are available for use without restriction in the UK.
The IPO said that it hoped that the publication and maintenance of the databases will help businesses to identify opportunities they might not otherwise have been aware of.
“The introduction of these two new free databases, which were recommended in the Gowers Review, will we hope, give UK businesses ready access to good ideas and new opportunities,” said Sean Dennehey, assistant comptroller and director of patents at the IPO.
The creation and maintenance of the databases was one of the recommendations of the 2006 Government-sponsored Gowers Review of Intellectual Property, conducted by former Financial Times editor Andrew Gowers.
It said: “the Patent Office should publish and maintain an open standards web database, linked to the [European Patent Office’s] esp@cenet web database, containing all patents issued under licence of right.” The report made the same recommendation for expired patents.
The databases will be updated weekly, the IPO said. They can be searched or sorted by the date their licence started on or went out of force.
