Searching Overview
The IP.com Prior Art Database is a unique database dedicated to the publication of technical disclosure documents.
Its sole purpose is to enable the creation of and access to prior art. The IP.com Prior Art Database
contains content exclusive to IP.com, and is an essential source of non-patent prior art literature for
intellectual property (IP) professionals, research and development (R&D) staff, corporate library staff,
and individual inventors wishing to research prior art.
The IP.com Prior Art Database is home to a wide array of technical disclosures from many Fortune 500 companies.
In addition to the anonymous publications by many prominent companies, you will also find disclosures published
with full authorship information from
innovative companies
such as IBM, Motorola, and Siemens. The IP.com Prior Art Database is also the exclusive location
for new IBM TDB (Technical Disclosure Bulletin) documents on the Web.
An annual search subscription to the IP.com Prior Art Database includes unlimited full text and concept query searches,
unrestricted document previews, document downloads and many more benefits. If you would like full access to the IP.com
Prior Art Database, or have any questions regarding this service, please
Contact us
or call +1-866-473-6826
Download Our Search Overview Guide (PDF)
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Content
What type of content is in the IP.com Prior Art Database?
Hundreds of clients ranging from large corporations to individuals are publishing defensive
disclosures everyday in the IP.com Prior Art Database. These disclosures cover a wide variety of
technology areas - some with authorship, some anonymously. In addition to all new technologies
published since 2001, we have also acquired complete backfiles including:
| Client |
Publication Dates |
| IBM TDB |
1958 - present |
| Internet Society Request for Comments (RFCs) |
1968 - present |
| Microsoft |
2006 - present |
| Motorola |
1980 - present |
| National Institute of Standards and Technology |
1994 - present |
| Siemens Disclosure Journal |
1998 - present |
| Software Patent Institute (SPI) |
1995 - present |
| Sony |
2000 - present |
| US Statutory Invention Registration (SIRs) |
1985 - present |
| Xerox Disclosure Journal |
1976 - present |
How is the IP.com Prior Art Database searched?
The IP.com Prior Art Database can be searched in numerous ways depending on your needs. All
documents are full text searchable to aid in locating relevant publications. Search types include:
- Keyword
- Boolean
- Document ID number
- Recent Publications
- Concept Query
Search Features →
Features
Unique content/Easy access
Much of the content in the IP.com Prior Art Database cannot be found anywhere else in the world.
The IP.com Prior Art Database content is published intentionally and specifically to create formal prior art.
Each disclosure is digitally notarized upon publication in order to guarantee that the content and date are
firmly established in the public domain.
Furthermore, each document published into the IP.com Prior Art Database is full text searchable, regardless
of the document type. This ensures you can locate even the most obscure prior art should it be relevant to
your search objectives. IP.com also offers concept searching to help locate inventions and prior art that
approximate the features or functions you are interesting in exploring.
There are many other search features that help reduce the universe of prior art to specific companies,
specific document types, or specific data fields, allowing you to quickly zero in on relevant prior art.
Many companies use the IP.com Prior Art Database as their sole channel for putting innovation into the public domain.
You'll find a number of notable companies using our database in this way, including leading technology companies
such as IBM, Motorola, Siemens, Sony, General Electric (GE), Abbott Laboratories, and ChevronTexaco. New disclosures,
as well as many historical documents can be found on our system.
Searched by patent examiners worldwide
For prior art to be effective it has to be conveniently available to patent office examiners.
The IP.com Prior Art Database is searched by examiners the world over. In addition, IP.com has a special training seminar that has
been presented to and available to all key patent offices worldwide, enabling them to
quickly find relevant prior art to prevent the issuance of invalid patents. The users of our
premium search service have the same access to leading technical disclosures as do patent
examiners worldwide.
Online and print publication
Prior art by definition must be placed into the public domain. The more accessible it is the
more valuable it becomes. IP.com accomplishes this in two ways. First, by providing online
access to the IP.com Prior Art Database for casual users as well as for the serious prior art
researcher. We complement this online system by making the same
publications available via The IP.com Journal. The IP.com Journal
(ISSN 1533-0001) is a semi-monthly, printed publication containing
all of the disclosures since the last volume. Each journal also
contains a CD-ROM with the full digital content available for that
volume's publications. The IP.com Journal is available in many
libraries around the world
(including the Library of Congress) and
makes an excellent offline archive for corporate libraries.
Secured/encrypted search access
Access to the IP.com Prior Art Database subscription service is handled over encrypted
(HTTPS) communications. This same security is offered to those who publish their prior
art through IP.com. This ensures that your search and result data is private, and cannot be
used to track your current R&D interests. We use secured systems and encryption protocols
provided by current web browsers to enable us to provide excellent protection without
requiring the addition of new software on the client machines.
Easy deployment within your infrastructure
The IP.com Prior Art Database can be accessed through your web browser, so there is no
software to install or maintain. Flexible publishing and search subscription plans make it
easy to deploy access to as many or as few users within your organization as you need.
Special corporate benefits include the ability to mark your own corporate documents to
users within your company, even if you've published anonymously. This helps in tracking
down relevant technology within your corporation to maximize its value across geographically
disparate locations.
Search Benefits →
Benefits
- Avoid wasted research into un-patentable technology or ideas
- Unique content, frequently not available anywhere else
- Gain insights into "current" technology versus "old" patented technology
- Increase awareness as to what examiners see when assessing your patent applications
- Find useful and cost saving public domain technology
Search Subscription →
Benefits of a Search Subscription
Encrypted searches
Searching intellectual property and specifically prior art is a sensitive business function for most enterprises. IP.com subscribers enjoy the added security of having all of their search activity encrypted between their browser and IP.com. Doing so ensures that your search activity cannot be intercepted or viewed by dubious individuals intent on gaining competitive knowledge of your intellectual property activity.
Full hit list search result
While normal search results are limited to 5 items, IP.com subscribers are presented with up to 500 relevant hits for a given search. By subscribing to IP.com you can view all published technology related to your search query. The most interesting or relevant item for your given purposes may not be presented in the limited hit list.
Full abstract
Each publication has an abstract that summarizes the invention or technology in the most succinct form. The full abstract of the invention is available to IP.com subscribers in its entirety to help you quickly ascertain whether the invention is relevant to your needs.
Concept Search
Concept searching bypasses all keywords and Boolean operators and gets right down to the concepts that you are interested in researching. Concept searching involves typing in English queries that describe the problem you're trying to solve or the subject matter you're interested in exploring. They remove the need to know relevant keywords, helping you find disclosures that discuss the concept, regardless of how it might have been worded by the author. This feature helps you find relevant technology that might otherwise have been obscured from your search result due to the language used in the disclosure. It also allows you to cut and paste language from patents or other documents so you can quickly find disclosures that are similar in nature.
Bibliographic field: Author
Bibliographic fields are reserved for IP.com subscribers. Viewing the Author field will help you assess whether it might be a competitive invention. The personal reputation of the Author may also help you assess the value of the invention to the given area of technology.
Bibliographic field: Date
Bibliographic fields are reserved for IP.com subscribers. The Date field is important to know
as it establishes the point in time that a competing technology would have to have been patented
in order to meet the "first to invent" requirement of the US Patent and Trademark office. It also
helps you understand the currency of the invention and the state of the art (and trends) in terms
of the volume of disclosures that may be published for a given area of technology in a certain
period of time.
Bibliographic field: Related people
Bibliographic fields are reserved for IP.com subscribers. Related people will identify other people in the disclosing organization that may have been involved in the invention that you are viewing. Similar to the Author field, this information can help you assess the value of the invention based on the reputations of the people involved.
Bibliographic field: Related documents
Bibliographic fields are reserved for IP.com subscribers. The Related Documents field will identify other documents that are considered relevant to the invention as determined by the disclosing party (i.e. the inventor). Viewing this field can help you expand your search and research activity to learn more about the invention or the field of art.
Date browsing
IP.com offers a number of ways to search and locate published technology. In addition to the Boolean and concept type searches, subscribers can browse all disclosures organized by date of publication based on month/year.
Company only searching
The "Company only" feature enables the user to search both anonymous as well as declared disclosures of your company. This allows the disclosing company the ability to remain anonymous (either all of the time or for certain disclosures) to the general searching public while still making the published disclosures recognizable internally.
Primary document front page flipping
A quick method for assessing the relevancy of specific disclosures is to by-pass the result list and jump directly front page to front page. Frequently, this page contains the most succinct discussion of the disclosure and sometimes includes a drawing.
Preview flipping
A quick method for assessing the relevancy of specific disclosures is to by-pass the result list and jump directly preview page to preview page. Doing so enables you to quickly see the full Abstract, Date, Author, Related documents, and other bibliographic fields to help you make a quick relevancy assessment about the disclosure itself.
First Page View
The 'First Page View' mode will display a readable image of the first page of the disclosure.
This allows you to quickly determine if the contents of a particular disclosure are relavant.
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