| System Data | Espacenet |
| Owner Name | European Patent Office (EPO) |
| Intellogist Report | Espacenet |
| Address | |
| Main Telephone | |
| Main Facsimile | |
| Website | Espacenet |
| Customer Support Email | espacenet@epo.org |
| Tool Type | Patent Search Systems, Free Tools, New/Recently Updated |
| Interface Language | English, French, German from the main Espacenet portal. Other interfaces may exist as portals to national-level Espacenet collections. |
| Rating | Espacenet |
| |
| Overall Rating |
Rating: 3.4/5 (5 votes) |
| Data Coverage Rating |
Rating: 3.7/5 (7 votes) |
| Document Delivery Rating |
Rating: 2.8/5 (5 votes) |
| Import/Export Functions Rating |
Rating: 2.2/5 (6 votes) |
| Value Rating |
Rating: 4.2/5 (6 votes) |
| Usability Rating |
Rating: 3.0/5 (5 votes) |
| Interface Functionality Rating |
Rating: 2.5/5 (6 votes) |
| Search Accuracy Rating |
Rating: 2.2/5 (6 votes) |
| Company Strength Rating |
Rating: 3.5/5 (6 votes) |
| Customer Support Rating |
Rating: 3.3/5 (6 votes) |
| |
| Data Coverage | Espacenet |
| Full Text: Patent Authority Coverage | EP, WO/PCT |
| Full Text: Patent Kind Coverage | EP - Published Applications; WO/PCT - Published International PCT Applications |
| Full Text: Number of Authorities | 2 |
| Partial Text: Patent Authority Coverage | For the purpose of this comparison, the assumption is that the system coverage is equal to INPADOC. |
| Partial Text: Patent Text Covered | INPADOC - English Abstracts |
| Bibliographic: Patent Authority Coverage | For the purpose of this comparison, the assumption is that the system coverage is equal to INPADOC. |
| Machine Pre-Translated Data |  Yes, if provided to the EPO by the national patent office |
| Full Document Images: Patent Authority Coverage | Full document images are available for almost 50 million of the over 70 million records in the database. Represented authorities may include: AP, AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CN, CS, CU, CY, CZ, DD, DE, DK, DZ, EA, EC, EE, EG, EP, ES, FI, FR, GB, GC, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IS, IT, LT, JP, KR, LU, LV, MA, MC, MD, MX, NL, NO, NZ, OA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RU, SE, SG, SI, SK, SU, TR, TW, UA, US, UY, WO/PCT, ZA, ZW |
| Representative/Front Page Images | Representative drawings available for many records from countries under PCT minimum documentation standards. Detailed coverage information is not provided. |
| Full Patent Drawing Sets | Drawing mosiacs are offered for many of the documents in the Espacenet collection. Detailed coverage information is not provided. |
| Corporate Tree Data |  No |
| Non-Patent Coverage | Yes |
| Non-Patent Sources | Any non-patent documents classified by EPO examiners as "XP" documents. |
| Special Indexing | No |
| Update Frequency | Varies widely by country collection. |
| Comments on Missing Coverage | Known gaps exist in INPADOC. As with any patent collection, gaps in coverage may exist but have not been discovered or quantified. Users should rely on Espacenet help material and empirical testing to check database content. |
| Family Data | Espacenet |
| Inpadoc Family Data Coverage | Yes |
| Types of Family Definition | Simple families (all documents share the same priority) and extended INPADOC families |
| Derwent WPI Family Coverage | No |
| Citation Data | Espacenet |
| Backward Citations | Yes |
| Forward Citations | Yes |
| Citation Data Coverage | EP and WO examiner's reports are used for citation data in Espacenet. |
| Special Features of Citation Search | Hyperlinks are provided to forward and backward citations from the record view. Certain non-patent literature documents (XP documents) may appear in the lists of cited/citing documents. |
| Citation Visualization Tool | No |
| Legal Status Data | Espacenet |
| Legal Status Data Included | Yes |
| Legal Status Data Sources | INPADOC legal status file |
| Classification Data | Espacenet |
| Current US Class | No |
| Original US Class | No |
| IPC - R | Yes |
| Original IPC data (v1-v7) | Yes |
| ECLA | Yes |
| Japanese File Index Terms | No |
| Japanese F-Terms | No |
| Other National Classification Systems | No |
| Search Interface Functionality | Espacenet |
| Search Form | Yes |
| Command Line Style Interface | Yes |
| Index Browsing Feature | No |
| Allowed Operators | Boolean and proximity operators are available. Proximity operators include sentence and paragraph based operators, as well as both fixed-order and non-order-specific operators. The non-order-specific operator allows users to define the maximum distance between terms. |
| Truncation | Unlimited and single character right truncation. |
| Unique Features of the Search Interface | SmartSearch feature allows users to enter mixed data parameters in a single field; "Number Search" page allows users to input a number without specifying what kind of number it is; both applicant and inventor fields may be searched simultaneously via "person or organization" search in the "Quick Search." |
| Viewing Results | Espacenet |
| Max Hit List Size | 500 |
| Single Representative Image | Yes |
| View Full Document Image | Yes, full document images are viewed under the "Original document" menu link. Sometimes a related family member image is substituted, if the original is not available. |
| Patent Drawing Thumbnail Overview | Yes |
| Family Sorting | Yes, hit lists and saved results are always presented with patent documents already grouped into simple families. However, sorting by extended INPADOC family is not available. |
| Sorting by Other Criteria | Yes, If the list of results is less than 500, users can sort the hit list by priority date, inventor name, applicant name, or ECLA code in ascending or descending order. |
| Deduplication | N/A |
| On-the-Fly Machine Translations | Yes |
| Keyword Term Highlighting | Yes |
| Keyword Term Navigation | No |
| User-Defined Highlighting | No |
| Highlighting Feature Supports Proximity Operators | No |
| Save Custom Lists From Search Results | Yes, up to 100 patent documents of interest can be saved in the "My Patents" list, which expires after 1 year of non-use. Security settings must allow browser cookies. |
| Combining Custom Patent List | No |
| Unique Features of The Record View | Bibliographic data, representative image and abstract are under the first menu link; Description (if available), Claims (if available), drawing mosaic, full document image, and legal status are present on separate menu links; clicking "next" will navigate to next record. |
| Search History | Espacenet |
| Saving Search Queries | Yes, the system will save your 10 most recent queries for the current browser session if the "Query history" function is enabled. |
| Organizing Search Queries | No |
| Stored Search Query Expiration Time | The system will save the 10 most recent search queries for the user's current browser session or until cookies are deleted or disabled. |
| Combining Search Queries | No |
| Exporting Search Histories | No, queries must be copied and saved elsewhere as soon as they are conducted or copied from the Query History list. |
| Alerts | Yes, RSS feeds can be created for individual search queries. |
| Import, Export and Download | Espacenet |
| Import List of Document Numbers | No |
| Export Document Data | Yes, up to 30 results may be exported at once. Bibliographic data is from representative family member. Text sections (other than title) and images are not exportable. |
| Formats for Export Data | CSV, XLS |
| Individual Patent Copy Downloading | Yes, documents up to a certain number of pages long (500 pages for EP documents and 250 pages for any other document) can be downloaded and saved to a local directory. Patents over that number must be saved page-by-page. |
| Bulk Patent Copy Downloading | Yes, users can now download up to 30 documents into a single PDF file through "My patents" list. |
| File Format for Patent Copy Downloads | PDF |
| Analysis | Espacenet |
| Statistical Analysis | No |
| Graphs | No |
| Keyword Analysis | No |
| Customer Support | Espacenet |
| Cost/Usage Tracking | No |
| On-Site Training | No |
| Scheduled Web Seminars | Yes |
| Live Help | No |
| Online User Guide | Yes |
| Pricing | Espacenet |
| Pricing Policy | Free |
| Assessment | Espacenet |
| Primary System Strengths | Worldwide data coverage; fast updates for PCT minimum documentation countries; free patent copy downloads; free RSS feeds for individual searches; free reliable patent family and legal status data. |
| Weaknesses and Annoyances | Limits on the saved result lists; Limited search history; Limits on patent copy downloads. |
| Overall Assessment | The service is a vitally important free source of patent bibliographic data, images, families, and legal status data. |
| Company Strength | The European Patent Office is one of the most important patent data producers in the industry, and Espacenet is a very heavily used and well regarded service. |
