The EPO’s Asian Patent Information Summer Challenge

This is your chance to raise your questions or discuss challenges, trends and hot topics around patent information from Asian countries.
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EPO / Asia Info
Posts: 68
Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2014 8:03 am

The EPO’s Asian Patent Information Summer Challenge

Post by EPO / Asia Info » Mon Aug 20, 2018 10:14 am

Dear patent information users,

Are you sweating in your office while everyone else is on vacation? Are you looking for a real challenge, fighting with language barriers, exotic databases and tricky legal events?

The EPO’s Asian Patent Information Services invite you to be part of our “Asian Patent Information Summer Challenge”.

We created a search task for you involving documents from three Asian countries (China, Japan and Korea) and invite you to share both your results and search approaches in this forum.

Here is the task:
In Espacenet, you came across the publication EP2830949 B1 https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publica ... 9A1&KC=A1#.
EP2830949B1.jpg

As you can see, there are Japanese, Chinese and Korean family members.
Try to find out the current status of these Asian family members.
Are the Japanese, Chinese and Korean applications still in force?

Important notes

• Please only use the official search tools provided by the patent offices, such as Espacenet https://worldwide.espacenet.com/, JPO’s J-Plat Pat database https://www.j-platpat.inpit.go.jp/web/a ... TmTopPage , KIPO’s KIPRIS search system http://engpat.kipris.or.kr/engpat/searc ... MainSearch or tools provided by SIPO (Patent Search and Analysis Platform http://www.pss-system.gov.cn/sipopublic ... eclare.jsp, China Patent Inquiry System http://cpquery.sipo.gov.cn/txnIndex.do? ... ggaolx%3D3, Official Patent Gazette http://epub.sipo.gov.cn/).

• As some of the information may only be available in the local languages, you may want to make use of our step- by step search guides for Japanese https://www.epo.org/searching-for-paten ... earch.html, Chinese https://www.epo.org/searching-for-paten ... earch.html and Korean databases https://www.epo.org/searching-for-paten ... earch.html.

• Please communicate in the forum not only the result, but also other thoughts, such as your strategy and search approach

• If you are struggling, feel free to ask questions and discuss this challenge with other users!

The summer challenge will run until the meteorological end of summer, i.e. 31 August.

We are looking forward to reading your postings in this forum!

With kinds regards,

EPO's Asian Patent Information Services Team


EPO / Asia Info
Posts: 68
Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2014 8:03 am

Re: The EPO’s Asian Patent Information Summer Challenge

Post by EPO / Asia Info » Tue Aug 28, 2018 11:16 am

Dear patent information users,

We are very happy to have so many viewers of our summer challenge!

For the ones who are also considering posting their solutions in this forum, here are the promised hints:

The complete patent family overview of EP 2830949 B1 can be quickly grasped in the INPADOC patent family section https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publica ... cale=en_EP. From this section you can also via the Global Dossier deep links peak in the online file inspection of the JP, CN and KR family members to get the first preliminary idea about what is going on.

Our challenge required the use of the official sources made available by SIPO, JPO and KIPO.

For the retrieval of the patent information on the Japanese file, you should visit J-PLATPAT database and use our search guide “Retrieving legal status information from the JPO’s J-PLATPAT” https://documents.epo.org/projects/baby ... 017_en.pdf. To see whether the patent is dead or alive, please visit the post grant section and find out for how many years the renewal fees have been paid. This should help you to draw the correct conclusions and have this case of your true detective table.

For the CN publication, you should visit first the SIPO Gazette and help yourself with the EPO’s guide “SIPO online gazette – legal status search” https://documents.epo.org/projects/baby ... 807_en.pdf. Unfortunately in this case, you will have to dig deeper as you should also view the online file inspection using the “China and Global Patent Examination Information Inquiry” and using our search guide “Online file inspection in English” https://documents.epo.org/projects/baby ... 807_en.pdf. Good things happen to those who wait and maybe you will have to watch this file for a while.

Already in the Espacenet, you could have spotted the fact that there are two Korean publications, both having a kind code A which could indicate a division in the mother application. To find out more, access the KIPRIS database and with the search guide ““Retrieving detailed legal status information on KIPRIS” https://documents.epo.org/projects/baby ... ris_en.pdf try to find out more about this mother-daughter relationship, who survived it and who did not.

We hope our hints will bring you further to correct findings.

We will post the complete solution to our summer challenge in about 2 weeks’ time.

Good luck searching!

Yours Asian Patent Information Services Team!!!


EPO / Asia Info
Posts: 68
Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2014 8:03 am

Re: The EPO’s Asian Patent Information Summer Challenge

Post by EPO / Asia Info » Wed Sep 12, 2018 8:21 am

Dear users,

The summer has to come to an end and so has our Asian patent information summer challenge!

But before we let the summer go, here are the promised solutions:

The Japanese family member published as JP2015512359 A and subsequently as JP6147846 B2 is according to the JPO’s J-PLATPAT database still in force as the renewal fees have been paid in April 2017 for the next 3 years.

The Chinese publication CN104364160 A is according to the Online gazette of the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA, former SIPO) still pending in the examination phase already since 2015 and thus we thought it would be a good idea to investigate further and to have a look in the online file inspection using China Patent Inquiry System database. Here we have found out that for this application there was a request for re-examination filed and accepted in 2017. The re-examination case is still pending and this file needs to be monitored.

The two Korean family members KR20140145181 A and KR20180014863 A are indeed mother and daughter. The mother application KR20140145181 A has been according to the KIPRIS database finally rejected in 2017 and is no longer in force. The daughter KR20140145181 A has been validly filed as a divisional application and according to the KIPRIS database refusal together with the amendments proposal by the examiner has been sent to the applicant in June 2018. The daughter application is still alive and pending.

We do hope that via our summer challenge you have learned about our step by steps search guides and how they can be of help to you when searching for the most recent Asian patent information using the official data sources of the Asian patent offices.

Please don’t be hesitant to contact us in case you need help retrieving or understanding Asian patent information. You can post your questions here at this forum or contact us directly at asiainfo@epo.org

We are looking forward to hearing or reading from you soon!

With kinds regards from Vienna,

EPO's Asian Patent Information Services Team


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