Before“Easy patent search”As a search method in the free DB "J-PlatPat", we introduced the search by number and the search by keyword.
　At that time, I mentioned that foreign patent documents can be searched by keyword search, but the searchable targets have been expanded compared to a few years ago.Therefore, this time, I re-examined how and what can be searched in "J-PlatPat".

Which foreign patent documents can be searched by keyword?

　Patent / utility model search pageWhen you open, there is an item called "Reference type" in the "Text search target" column, and when you click "Detailed settings" on the right side of the screen, the hidden "Foreign document" (foreign patent document) selection screen is displayed.

　Currently available foreign documents are USA (US), EPO (EP), WIPO (WO), China (CN), South Korea (KR), United Kingdom (GB), Germany (DE), France (FR), Switzerland. (CH) and Canada (CA), and the patent documents issued in these are foreign documents referred to as "J-PlatPat".
　However, if all of these are text searchable (keyword search), that is not the case.
　The text search targets five major patent offices: the United States (US), EPO (EP), China (CN) and South Korea (KR), and WIPO (WO).
　The United Kingdom (GB), Germany (DE), France (FR), Switzerland (CH) and Canada (CA) are not eligible.These countriesYou can only search using the patent classifications "IPC" and "CPC"Therefore, if you want to perform a detailed search using keywords, you need to use another database.

What is a text search target?

　As mentioned above, the text search targets five countries: the United States (US), EPO (EP), China (CN), South Korea (KR), and WIPO (WO).
　As shown in the figure below, there are "Japanese" and "English" text search targets.
　If all of the above five countries can be searched by "Japanese" and "English", that is not the case. What can be searched by "Japanese" and what can be searched by "English" are different.

① Text search (Japanese)

　In Japanese, that is, in Japanese, you can search in all of the above five countries.However, not all documents can be searched in Japanese, and the search target differs depending on the country.

　You can search the Japanese abstracts of published / registered patents in the United States (US) and the Japanese abstracts of published patents in EPO (EP).This Japanese abstract is not just a translation of the abstract, but an abstract in Japanese from the claims, specifications and drawings.
　However, it seems that the Japanese abstracts of the United States (US) and EPO (EP) are not prepared for all documents.As a result of actual confirmation, Japanese abstracts of the United States (US) are not found in Japanese applicants / right holders, and Japanese abstracts of EPO (EP) are not only similar to those in the United States (US), but are not recorded. There were many.
　WIPO (WO) gazettes can only be searched for gazettes published in Japanese.

　On the other hand, in China (CN), Japanese abstracts of published / registered utility models and machine-translated full texts into Japanese are eligible (* Chinese Japanese abstracts have been accumulated since the publication around 2017. , It doesn't seem to be created now.).For Korea (KR), the whole sentence is machine translated into Japanese.However, machine translation seems to have a time lag of several months.
　There are not many tools that can search foreign patent documents in Japanese, including paid databases.It is necessary to pay attention to the translation accuracy, but it is a very effective tool to be able to search China (CN) and South Korea (KR) in Japanese and target the entire text.

② Text search (English)

　Full-text search is possible not only in the United States (US). For EPO (EP) and WIPO (WO), applications filed in English, abstracts in English, and claims are searched.
　On the other hand, in China (CN) and South Korea (KR), only the English abstracts prepared for the one-time gazette are targeted, and most of them are not hit.It is thought that this is because Japanese search is fully supported and the need for English search is low.

Summary

　There are two types of search methods for foreign patent documents in "J-PlatPat" by keyword: (XNUMX) Japanese search and (XNUMX) English search.English search can be used to the United States (US) without any problem, and Japanese search covers the full text of China (CN) and South Korea (KR) even though it is machine translation, and China (CN) has a few more years. It is a noteworthy feature that the previous Japanese abstracts are also covered.
　On the other hand, it should be noted that the specifications of each search method are complicated due to the detailed targeting.For this reason, when searching for foreign patent documents by keyword, it is necessary to always be aware of which country, which document, and which range is the search target.
　It is necessary to fully understand these characteristics, but it is a very powerful function as a free database, so I would like to make good use of it.If you need more functionality, consider a private patent database for a fee.

Research Division Nagaoka

<Reference>
J-PlatPat Literature Accumulation Information
https://www.j-platpat.inpit.go.jp/html/c2000/patent.html?version=2019924
List of main data provided by the JPO
https://www.jpo.go.jp/resources/report/nenji/2019/document/index/0602.pdf