INPADOC, which stands for International Patent Documentation Center, is an international patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

 collection. The database

Database

A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...

 is produced and maintained by the European Patent Office

European Patent Organisation

The European Patent Organisation is a public international organisation created in 1977 by its contracting states to grant patents in Europe under the European Patent Convention of 1973...

 (EPO). It contains patent families

Patent family

A patent family is "a set of patents taken in various countries to protect a single invention ." In other words, a patent family is "the same invention disclosed by a common inventor and patented in more than one country."- See also :* Continuing patent application* Triadic patent* INPADOC...

 and legal

Law

Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

 status information, and is updated weekly.

INPADOC was founded by the World Intellectual Property Organization

World Intellectual Property Organization

The World Intellectual Property Organization is one of the 17 specialized agencies of the United Nations. WIPO was created in 1967 "to encourage creative activity, to promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world"....

 (WIPO) and the government of Austria under an agreement on May 2, 1972. A little less than twenty years later, on January 1, 1990 or, according to another source, in 1991, it was integrated into the European Patent Office. An EPO sub-office was then created in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, Austria.

The INPADOC database, which is publicly accessible, provides information about patent families, i.e. corresponding patent applications, i.e., patent applications in different countries which claim the same priority and which normally disclose the same invention. It also provides information concerning the legal status of patent applications and patents in those countries which report status changes.

See also

• Espacenet
• International Patent Classification
  International Patent Classification
  The International Patent Classification is a hierarchical patent classification system created under the Strasbourg Agreement and updated on a regular basis by a Committee of Experts, consisting of representatives of the Contracting States of that Agreement with observers from other...
  
  
• Patent classification
  Patent classification
  A patent classification is a way the examiners of patent offices or other people arrange documents, such as patent applications, disclosing inventions according to the technical features of the inventions...
  
  
• Derwent World Patents Index
  Derwent World Patents Index
  The Derwent World Patents Index is a database containing patent applications and grants from 44 of the world's patent issuing authorities....
  
  
• FIZ Karlsruhe

External links

• INPADOC page on the EPO web site
• INPADOCDB on STN