Asian patent data represents a major part of worldwide prior art documentation and patent information users have to meet the challenge of retrieving this documentation effectively and efficiently.  At last year's "East meets West" forum in Vienna, users discussed what the main hurdles to the efficient use of Asian patent data were and proposed ways to overcome them. The most important issues mentioned were:

- standardisation of number formats and kind codes,

- access to original documents,

- dealing with applicants' and inventors' names, and

- timely data availability.

(For further details please refer to the discussion report at: http://www.epo.org/about-us/events/archive/2009/emw2009/programme.html) 

 

This year's discussion will look at the efforts that are currently being taken to deal with issues of standardisation, document access and efficient retrieval of Asian patent data. What are the main hurdles we still have to overcome? What are the most pressing priorities? How can documentation specialists at patent offices, the commercial sector and the patent information user community work together to meet the special challenges posed by Asian patent documentation?

The latest statistics from WIPO show that the hubs for worldwide innovation have shifted: China, Japan and Korea are all among the top five biggest patenting nations; more than 50% of new patent publications worldwide appear in Chinese, Japanese or Korean. This means that Asian data represents a major part of worldwide prior art documentation and that patent information users have to meet the challenge of retrieving this documentation effectively and efficiently. How are users coping with a plurality of number formats, varying publication stages, different document types and kind codes? How are patent offices and database producers dealing with ever-growing patent data collections. Are there ways of collaborating on standardising and simplifying patent documentation to make life easier for patent information users and data producers alike?

This discussion round will ask participants what challenges they face when working with Asian patent documentation and what hurdles they have to overcome. The aim will be to identify ways of simplifying the use of Asian patent documents for patent searchers and of retrieving these documents more efficiently.