N. 37, January - March 2008 
IP in practice 
IP eModules 
 

Chinese Patent Data: a patent information challenge

China, with its ever growing patent filing figures, is becoming a major actor not only because of the volume of IPR it creates but also because it produces a huge amount of prior art information. This data not being available and searchable in English full-text is causing serious headaches for actors who must access this information to perform prior art or freedom to operate searches.

This module provides you with information sources that can help if you need to access Chinese data.


An overview of Chinese patent databases available for free via English or Chinese interfaces




Source

Coverage

Update frequency (time lag)

Data available

URL

SIPO Website (Chinese)

 Patents, utility models, designs, from 1985 onwards

 Every Wednesday (none)

Chinese bibliographic data/abstracts; original documents (A and B/C documents; TIFF, page by page), Chinese legal status data

http://www.sipo.gov.cn/sipo/zljs/

SIPO Website (English)

Patents, utility models, from 1985 onwards

 Quarterly (at least three months)

English bibliographic data, abstracts for patents (incomplete for utility models)

 http://www.sipo.gov.cn/sipo_English/zljs/

China Patent Database (CNPAT) (English)

 Patents, utility models, designs, from 1985 onwards

 Monthly (at least three months)

English bibliographic data, abstracts for patents, original documents (A and B/C documents)

 http://search.cnpat.com.cn/Search/EN/

Experimental Platform of Patent Information Services (Chinese)

 Patents, utility models, designs, from 1985 onwards

 Every Wednesday (none)

Chinese bibliographic data/abstracts; original documents (A and B/C documents; TIFF, full document), Chinese legal status data

 http://pub.cnipr.com/pubpisfts/

Experimental Platform of Patent Information Services (English)

 Patents, utility models from 1985 to 2006

 Currently not updated

 English bibliographic data, abstracts, original documents (A documents only; TIFF, full document); English legal status data

 http://pub.cnipr.com/enpubpisfts/

CNIPR database (Chinese)

Patents, utility models, designs, from 1985 onwards

 Every Wednesday (none)

Free: Chinese bibliographic data/abstracts Fee payable: original documents, Chinese legal status data

http://www.cnipr.com.cn/



This list is evolving very rapidly. At the beginning of 2008, Baidu Patents a Chinese equivalent of Google Patents has been launched. This tool is interesting but still lacking the full-text search feature.

esp@cenet® is another place where Chinese data can be accessed. In particular the image collection of the complete patent document is easy to access using this tool.

An example of such a record

Many commercial providers also started covering this data and more is to be expected in view of the very high demand.

This list cannot pretend to be exhaustive, but clearly shows that Chinese Patent search tools is a fast moving area. 2008, will most likely see additional possibilities to access this precious data.


Translating search results in English

Translating search results from Chinese to English can be done using Google Translate. This tool can translate a complete Web page or text data in Chinese.

The Baidu search interface translated in English using Google Translate

A Baidu Patent search result translated in English using Google Translate

Results are still far from perfect but they can give a first vague idea of the technical content of a patent document.


Sites covering information on Chinese patent information issues

EPO Virtual helpdesk

East Meets West: a forum on Oriental Patent Information

Proceedings of the last East meets West meeting