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Terms & Conditions

PATENT SEARCH ADVICE

28 April 2008
Release of AusPat

IP Australia has released AusPat, the new search system for Australian patents. You can access AusPat at http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/auspat/

Users are advised to conduct their searches in AusPat. Patsearch is expected to be decommissioned later this year.

18 April 2006
IPC Reform Update

IP Australia loaded the IPC data that was reclassified to IPC8 by the European Patent Office (EPO) on 7th and 8th April 2006. For APPS and the APA Master Index, the data will be updated towards the end of April 2006.

While the vast majority of data has been reclassified, not all AU data was reclassified in this activity and so a small number of records have retained pre-IPC Reform marks. IP Australia is currently investigating with EPO the technical reasons for the non-reclassification of the remaining data.

Consequently, IP Australia recommends that the searches of our patent databases continue to be conducted using all versions of IPC until advised otherwise.

IP Australia will seek to resolve the issue in the shortest possible timeframe and will advise all users once the data has been reclassified.

2 February 2006
Delay in publication of IPC7 to IPC8 reclassification data

Due to delays in receiving reclassified IPC marks from the EPO IPC7 to IPC8 reclassified data will not be published or available through the IP Australia searching facilities until April 2006. For more information, please see the attached document below.

IPC Reform Update

31 January 2006
Section 223 Extensions of Time Details available

On 30 January 2006, PatSearch was updated in order to display all Section 223 Extensions of Time details. The data refresh for PatSearch is scheduled to occur at approx 5:30am each day from today onwards.

30 January 2006
Enhancements made to PatSearch

On 28 January 2006, PatSearch was updated in order to accommodate the enhancements and maintenance changes introduced as part of PatSearch Release 11.0. A summary of the changes/enhancement to PatSearch are provided in the attached document.

It should be noted that due to a minor data integrity issue found during implementation that all Section 223 Extensions of Time details will not be available until the next anticipated data refresh on Tuesday 31 January 2006.

5 December 2005
Changes to PatSearch to accommodate the IPC Reform

On 3rd December 2005, PatSearch was updated in order to accommodate the changes to IPC marks in line with the IPC Reform. A summary of the changes you will notice within PatSearch is provided in the attached document.

WARNING: For PCT Applications filed before 1 January 2004 but which have not entered the National Phase.

A small number of PCT applications filed before 1 January 2004 which have not entered the National Phase but are OPI in Australia may have incomplete applicant name details stored in the Patent Administration and Management System (PAMS) and PATSEARCH. The problem applies to those applications which have more than one applicant name, as it has been identified that in some of these cases not all applicant names are being loaded onto our systems. We are currently working to resolve this problem and we will be updating the affected records as soon as possible. Please note that the complete applicant name details can be obtained from Espacenet.

Customers utilising IP Australia's online patent search facilities are advised to read the following:

1. The patents act has provisions which allow for the restoration of a lapsed or a ceased patent.

2. A lapsed or withdrawn application (including provisional applications) or a ceased patent may provide priority for a different current application or patent.

3. Because of provisions relating to the late payment of fees, the fact that an application has lapsed, or a patent ceased, will not be known until after six months from the date of actual lapsing or ceasing.

4. The patent administration system database does not contain any cross-reference between applications in PatAdmin and linked applications (eg. Standard complete applications that are associated with provisionals) in the Patent Administration and Management System (PAMS) database which have been filed from 5 July 2002.

5. Users should note that possible legal actions may impact on the current status and other details recorded in relation to patent applications in this database

6. Delays in receiving data from WIPO about published AU designated PCT applications has meant that a number of PCT applications filed before 5 July 2002 may appear in the Patent Administration and Management System (PAMS) as new applications. These applications only have a new format number and hence will not be found in PatAdmin. IP Australia is unable to produce a definitive list of these applications.

7. Copies of innovation patent specifications published between May 2001 and July 2002 in the Patsearch database are not available online and can only be obtained by contacting IP Australia. These specifications are expected to be made available soon.

8. Not all fields listed in the Patsearch application are being populated with data from other IP Australia systems. Please check the attached list to establish whether the information you are interested in may appear in the Patsearch results. Patsearch Unpopulated Fields List.

9. The publication history includes all publication actions for a particular application which have occurred on or after 12 Sept 2002. Please find the explanation for these codes in the attached publication codes list

PLEASE NOTE: A search of both PatAdmin and Patsearch is still necessary to obtain bibliographic information about all Australian Patent Specifications. Failure to search both of these systems may mean that a complete search has not been conducted.

PCT applications filed after 1 January 2004 which designate Australia will no longer automatically enter the PAMS database, these applications will only be processed into PAMS if and when they enter the national phase in Australia. Espacenet should be accessed to search PCT applications that may potentially enter the national phase in Australia .

If you have any questions regarding the notices above, please contact IP Australia.

Patsearch

This database contains bibliographic information about innovation patent applications filed from 24 May 2001 and all new standard complete, provisional and innovation patent applications filed after the implementation of Patent Administration and Management System (PAMS) Release 2.1 on 5 July 2002. These applications have the number format CCYYNNNNNN where C=Century, Y=Year and N=application number. The 5th character also denotes application type i.e. 1 = Innovation, 9 = Provisional and any other number 2,3 etc = Standard Complete e.g. 2003100001 is an Innovation Patent filed in 2003. It also contains information about PCT applications which have designated Australia but which had not yet entered the National Phase when data migration from Patadmin into PAMS occurred in August 2002 and any subsequent designations up to 31 December 2003.

Other Patent Databases

Patent Mainframe Databases

Patent Administration System (PatAdmin)
contains bibliographic data in relation to existing patent applications that have been filed in Australia between January 1979 and the implementation of NPS Release 2.1 on 5 July 2002. In some cases, details of patents filed before January 1979 are also available. Note that a limited number of the data fields can be used for searches. This database does not contain details of any innovation patents and all new standard complete and provisional applications filed from 5 July 2002.
Patent Indexing System (PatIndex)
contains Australian patent applications and patents contained within PatAdmin linked to one or more International Patent Classification marks.

AU Published Patent Data Searching

Patent specifications

AU-A, AU-B and AU-C information.

Concordance check

All applications in the Patent Administration and Management System (PAMS) database will be numbered in accordance with the new IP Australia numbering standard of ccyyxxxxxx for both applications and patents, with cc representing the century, yy the year and xxxxxx a six digit number which begins annually. However, some applications which have been migrated into the PAMS database from the PatAdmin system may also have an existing application number and perhaps an existing serial number. Users can check equivalent numbers against any of these three different number types for patent applications held in the PAMS database.

Disclaimer: While all care has been taken in establishing these databases, the Commonwealth, the Director General and the staff of IP Australia accept no responsibility for errors or omissions in the databases or their consequences, including any loss which may be incurred as a result of reliance on the accuracy or completeness of the databases. Access to the databases is provided only on this understanding.