COPYCENSE

"Questel-Orbit recently announced the release of FamPat, the family-based version of its international patent database PlusPat. An interesting feature of FamPat is that it gives searchers a choice of how broad a patent family they may display. Subject-searchable elements include:

"First, some background. Like PlusPat, FamPat has probably the broadest country and time coverage of any subject-searchable patent database. It covers 75 patenting authorities, and some countries go back to the early 20th century (or even earlier: Germany goes back to 1877). The very early records only have numeric information. However, this includes ECLA classes in some cases, so they can be retrieved in subject searches."

• title and abstract text and (for some French patents) indexing terms
• ECLA (European Patent Office) classifications, as applied by the EPO, including the ICO (in computer only) classes that cover non-inventive and other aspects of the patent
• U.S. patent classes as applied by the USPTO
• International Patent Classes as applied by most countries’ patent offices

Nancy Lambert. Announcing FamPat, A New International Patent Database from Questel-Orbit. Information Today. Feb. 14, 2005.

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