https://www.epo.org/en/searching-for-patents/technical/espacenet/release-notes

Release notes

Espacenet 1.47.3 release notes – 28 July 2024 

General

The Swedish Espacenet interface was missing the English language option under SE - Sweden in the Office/Language drop-down menu. This has been fixed.

Espacenet and the ABS tool now share the same backend.

Document pane

The truncated abstracts have now been fully restored.

My Espacenet

The functionality for transferring the My patents list from classic Espacenet had stopped working. This has been fixed.

If you added more than one family member in My patents, using the red star to remove a family member did not work. This has been fixed.

Classification search

You now have direct access to the CPC text categoriser via a link on Espacenet. This tool is driven by artificial intelligence and suggests relevant CPC symbols based on a natural language query describing a technology of interest.

Accessibility

You can now rotate drawings using L to rotate left and R to rotate right.

When your focus was on the star in the document pane and you used the TAB key again to go to the next element (the publication number link), the publication number was not framed by a blue border. This has been fixed.

When you used numeric keys 1, 2, 3, etc. the focus went as expected to bibliographic data (1), description (2), claims (3), etc. However, the blue frame stayed on the bibliographic data header in the navigation bar or dropdown menu (the latter for smaller screens or higher zoom levels). The focus now goes to and stays on the star.

Error messages

If you get an error, selecting the contact link will now take you to the EPO service desk.

This release also includes other improvements that are not visible to the user. These improvements are not mentioned here. 

Espacenet Known issues and workarounds discussion forum.

Espacenet 1.46.2 release notes – 29 November 2023 

Document pane 

Almost all Legal events views showed a component error message on mobiles. This has been fixed.

My Espacenet 

My patents wrongly displayed the option Add selection to My patents in the three-dot menu. This option has been removed.

This release also includes other improvements that are not visible to the user. These improvements are not mentioned here. 

Espacenet Known issues and workarounds discussion forum.

Espacenet 1.45.0 release notes – 20 September 2023 

Landing page 

Selecting the Advanced search toggle to close the search template before running a search did not bring you back to the landing page. This has been fixed. 

Document pane 

On smaller devices, the document pane was hidden when using the threedot menu. To fix this, the three-dot menu has now been moved to the right. 

Text was sometimes not aligned. This has been fixed.   

Network disruption sometimes caused unwanted text to appear. You are now shown an error message. 

For publications with very long titles, the information in the Bibliographic data, Description and Claims views was not visible. To fix this, long titles are now truncated. Select the + icon to see the whole title (and the - icon to collapse it again). 

Navigating away from the Citations, Legal events or Patent family views meant a reset to the default sort orders. Espacenet now remembers your most recent sort orders, even across sessions. To reset to the default sort order and to the default layout format, select the (layout reset ) icon in My Espacenet, My settings.  

In the Citations view, Cited documents displayed the citations of the earliest publication of a same application for all kind codes (e.g. citations of the A1 document for the A1 and B1 documents). This view now displays the citations of the consulted document. 

Search  

When running very long queries and saving the results to Excel, you got an error when opening the downloaded Excel file. The query in the Excel file was also truncated. These problems have been fixed. 

Filters 

Sometimes, not all inventors or applicants were listed in the Inventors and Applicants filter categories. The number of entries in these filter categories has now been increased to 1000. 

Displaying long queries in the Chart/graph overview pop-up window meant it was not possible to see the charts or graphs. Now, long queries are truncated. Select the + icon to see the whole query (and the - icon to collapse it again). 

If you applied a filter item in the Chart/graph overview pop-up window, part of the filter texts in the pop-up window were no longer displayed. This has been fixed. 

This release also includes other improvements that are not visible to the user. These improvements are not mentioned here. 

Espacenet Known issues and workarounds discussion forum.

Espacenet 1.44.1 release notes – 30 May 2023 

Unitary Patent 

Espacenet is ready for the Unitary Patent.  

A new marker – C0 – indicates European patents with registered unitary effect. You can search for Unitary Patents using this marker, such as in the following query: pn=EPC0.  

For Unitary Patents, in addition to the EPA and EPB publications there will be an additional record (EPC0). 

A blue icon () also indicates European patents with registered unitary effect. 

The following new features have been added for Unitary Patents: 

  • A new Unitary Patent link featuring the blue icon will lead you to the Unitary Patent Register section UP About this file. It will appear on the Bibliographic data, Description, Claims and INPADOC family views. 
  • Within the EPC0 record, the link to Global Dossier will lead you to the Unitary Patent Register section UP All documents. It appears in the Bibliographic data, Description, Claims and INPADOC family views. 
  • Within the EPC0 record, Bibliographic data, Description, Claims and Drawings will display the data of the corresponding EPB document. The abstract will be from the EPA or EP/PCT. 
  • In downloads of the latest legal events, the Unitary Patent and Global Dossier links will appear in two adjacent columns. 
  • The blue icon will also appear to the right of EP publication numbers on printed Bibliographic data, Description, Claims, INPADOC family and Latest legal events views. 

For more on Unitary Patent data in Espacenet, see the Unitary Patent information in patent knowledge page

Document pane 

Inventor names are now displayed in the Simple family and INPADOC family tables. They are also visible in the downloaded and printed versions of these tables. 

If there are network connection issues and the document details are not displayed, an error message will now appear as well as a button to reload the page. 

My patents 

There were loading and stability issues with My patents. For example, some users saw a loading icon instead of stored documents. This issue has been fixed. 

Classification search 

Access to the page "Notice of changes" from the Classification search area has been restored. 

Filters 

The Family/Publication filter toggle has been set by default to Family instead of Publication

This release also includes other improvements that are not visible to the user. These improvements are not mentioned here. 

Espacenet Known issues and workarounds discussion forum.

Espacenet 1.42.0 release notes – 15 February 2023

Filters

The chart/graph overview (available when you enable Filters) now comes with a hyperlink, meaning you can share the statistical overview of your search results with others.

Classification search

The Notice of changes to CPC hyperlink is working again.

My patents

Once you've viewed a document in My patents, selecting My patents in the breadcrumbs closes the document pane.

Document pane

You can now sort on the More events column in the Patent familyLatest legal events table. 

Settings 

The reset icon is greyed out and inactive after you reset the layout. 

Accessibility

It is now possible to focus on the Smart search magnifying glass (Search button) using your keyboard. 

This release also includes other improvements that are not visible to the user. These improvements are not mentioned here.

Espacenet Known issues and workarounds discussion forum.

Espacenet 1.41.1 release notes – 28 November 2022

Search

Straight after opening Espacenet, when you entered a query in Smart search and opened Advanced search before running the query, the query in Smart search disappeared. This has been fixed.

Filters

The limit for the Countries filter category has been raised to 150 and for the Applicants – country and Inventors – country filter categories to 300.

Document pane

It sometimes took up to 15 seconds to load Bibliographic data views. They are now displayed much faster.

When users select Global Dossier in the Bibliographic data, Description or Claims view, the Global Dossier page is now displayed in the same EPO official language (DE, EN, FR) as the one selected for the Espacenet interface.

This release also includes other improvements that are not visible to the user. These improvements are not mentioned here.

Espacenet Known issues and workarounds discussion forum.

Espacenet 1.39.2 release notes – 19 October 2022

Result list

The result list could not be expanded anymore when Advanced search or the Filters were open. This has been fixed.

Document pane

When publications do not have any available abstract in the database, the available abstract of another publication sharing the same application number is displayed on the bibliographic data view. In these situations, a message now indicates the publication number to which the displayed abstract corresponds to.

This release also includes other improvements that are not visible to the user. These improvements are not mentioned here.

Espacenet Known issues and workarounds discussion forum.

Espacenet 1.38.0 release notes – 19 September 2022

Document pane 

The language code for Montenegro has been changed to CNR.

Filters 

The left and right axis titles of the Publication date filter have been changed to "Publications per year" and "Publications cumulative" when filtering on publication level.

Help 

When the Help area was open in a new tab or window, other areas in the main navigation bar could sometimes not be selected anymore. This has been fixed.

Help pages can now be printed and the menus can be both opened and closed upon selection of a drop-down arrow. 

This release also includes other improvements that are not visible to the user. These improvements are not mentioned here.

Espacenet Known issues and workarounds discussion forum.

Espacenet 1.36.2 release notes – 29 June 2022

Search

Queries are no longer limited to a maximum of 20 search terms. They are now restricted to a maximum of 500 search terms and by the maximum URL length supported by your browser or email provider.

To help with longer queries, it is now possible to expand the width of the Advanced search view.

For easier query viewing and editing use the Smart search editor. This can be accessed using the rectangle icon displayed in the Smart search bar.

Publication numbers with trailing letters, e.g. SG10201907080YA, are now searchable and recognised as patent numbers when you search with the kind code.

Document pane

The publication date in the Citing documents view was not correct. This has been fixed.

Filters

The left and right axis titles of the Publication date filter have been changed to "Publications per year" and "Publications cumulative" when filtering on publication level.

Help

New help content has been added to Espacenet with an expandable/collapsible tree of topics. Adjust the width of the panels by using the double-headed arrow which appears when you hover over the panel separator. Select and hold or right-click a help topic to open a new tab or window. Use the new keyword search feature to find topics of interest.

This release also includes other improvements that are not visible to the user. These improvements are not mentioned here.

Espacenet Known issues and workarounds discussion forum.

Espacenet 1.33.0 release notes - 14 March 2022

Search

You can now access the Advanced search from the homepage when you zoom in on your desktop, laptop or tablet using the magnifying glass icon and from the drop-down menu on your smartphone.

You must now enter a value to use the Smart search.

Filters

Axis titles were missing from date graphs. This has been fixed.

Document pane

It is now always possible to sort by column in the Citations and Patent family views.

A new column in the Citations view indicates the type of NPL citation (e.g. internet citation, journal article, conference proceedings article).

Some Korean descriptions were only partially being downloaded. This has been fixed.

Some publication numbers were being incorrectly displayed in the Citations view. This has been fixed.

My Espacenet

Users encountered problems using My patents when the number of stored documents exceeded 100. This has been fixed.

Families which have been transferred from the Citations view into the result list can now be added to My patents.

Under My Settings, deleting results marked as read will now also include items in My patents.

This release also includes other improvements that are not visible to the user. These improvements are not mentioned here.

Visit this Espacenet discussion forum for a list of known issues and workarounds.

Espacenet 1.29.0 release notes - 15 November 2021

Downloads

The names of downloaded xlsx and csv files have been changed to reflect their content types.

Some information in the xlsx files was hidden. This has been fixed.

The print layout of result lists has been made more user‑friendly.

Document pane

The query ct=XP sometimes caused the duplication and grey highlighting of XP numbers in the Citations view. This has been fixed.

This release also includes other improvements that are not visible to the user. These improvements are not mentioned here.

Visit this Espacenet discussion forum for a list of known issues and workarounds.

Espacenet 1.28.0 release notes - 27 October 2021

Document pane

The links to Global Dossier were sometimes missing in the Latest legal events pane of Patent family. This has been fixed.

Descriptions and claims were missing for some EP documents. This has been fixed.

For NPL citations, the three-dot menu at the top right of the Bibliographic data pane wrongly proposed a Share this patent option. Because cited NPL documents are not patent documents and because they cannot be specifically searched and shared, this option has been removed for NPL citations.

The publication date of NPL citations was displayed in the wrong column in the Cited documents pane. This has been fixed.

This release also includes other improvements that are not visible to the user. These improvements are not mentioned here.

Visit this Espacenet discussion forum for a list of known issues and workarounds

Espacenet 1.27.1 release notes - 5 October 2021

General

When searching specifically for patent publication, application or priority numbers, the numbers were not highlighted correctly in the Bibliographic data and Patent family panes. This is now working properly.

At certain zoom levels, Espacenet failed to correctly display the result list, advanced search and filter sections. This issue has been fixed.

The link to the ARABPAT French interface is now working.

The bibliographic data printouts are now showing the correct application number.

The entries in the Help glossary are now displayed in alphabetical order in the French and German language interfaces.

Search

With Smart search, you can search all patent documents with a specific kind code using one of the following types of query (CC= country code, KC=kind code):
pn=CCKC, e.g. pn=EPB1
pn=CC AND pn=KC,
e.g. pn=EP AND pn=B1.
In Advanced search mode, you need to use the Publication number search field.
You can also use wildcard operators to broaden the scope of your search, e.g. pn=EPB* to find EPB1, EPB2, EPB3, EPB8 and EPB9.
This new release eliminates any need to truncate the kind code, so pn=EPB now gives the same results as pn=EPB*.

When you activate a filter, updated queries in Smart or Advanced search modes are now also processed.

Result list

Some results disappeared when scrolling down the result list and then shifting the focus to another view such as My patents, Classification search and Help. This has been fixed.

Document pane

In the Citations view, the publication date corresponded to the earliest publication date of the citation's application lifecycle instead of the publication date of the displayed citation. Espacenet now displays the correct publication date.

Keyboard accessibility

When using keyboard navigation, some elements were highlighted in grey or framed in black instead of being framed with a blue border when the keyboard focus was on them. These elements are now correctly framed with a blue border.

This release also includes other improvements that are not visible to the user. These improvements are not mentioned here.

Visit this Espacenet discussion forum for a list of known issues and workarounds.

Espacenet 1.24.0 release notes - 16 June 2021

Result list

If you select individual results in the Result list, the number of items selected is indicated to the right of the main check box (x patents selected) at the top of the list. Clearing this check box now cancels all selections made. The bug whereby it was only possible to cancel the first 100 selections in one go and all others one by one has been fixed.

The document title in the result list is designed to change from red to grey when clicked/tapped to indicate that the document has been consulted. In this release, it is now also the case in the following scenarios:

  • documents added in batches to the My patents list using the main check box to the left of (x patents selected)
  • citations transferred to the Result list
  • INPADOC family data transferred to the Result list

The bug whereby titles and/or abstracts in a language other than English in citations or INPADOC family data transferred to the Result list were not displayed has been fixed.

Keyboard accessibility

When using your keyboard to navigate, the Espacenet element your keyboard focus is on at any given time is visually highlighted. Google Chrome, for instance, uses a blue border for this. This is now also true for Help section links to support materials and forms, for example the Pocket guide, the Changes in Espacenet guide, the Espacenet forum and our Contact form.

This release also includes other improvements that are not visible to the user. These improvements are not mentioned here.

Visit this Espacenet discussion forum for a list of known issues and workarounds.

Espacenet 1.23.0 release notes - 31 May 2021

Result list

When selecting the Text and thumbnails list view, for some documents, a spinner was displayed instead of a thumbnail. This bug has been fixed.

Previously, Espacenet crashed when the user tried to print a result list with 0 results. This is no longer the case.

Espacenet only allows the first 100 results in the result list to be selected at once. When a list with more than 100 results was viewed, e.g. 120, an incorrect message used to be displayed at the top of the result list, i.e. Select the first 120 results. This message has now been remedied. Please note that additional documents can be selected manually. When doing so, the limitations for the download features should be taken into consideration: max. 100 results in .pdf format and max. 500 results in .xlsx and .csv formats.

When the result list was in collapsed/hidden mode, the hit number erroneously overlapped other text elements. This has been fixed.

 

Document pane

In some instances, data such as the applicant name and the earliest publication date was missing after the transfer of the INPADOC family to the result list. This issue has been fixed.

Filters

The query link in a downloaded Excel file for filtered data is now working.

See also this forum entry for a list of known issues and workarounds.

Espacenet 1.22.0 release notes - 14 April 2021

General

The Internet Explorer browser is not supported anymore by Espacenet. A popup now appears on this browser to remind the users that some features may not work and tables many not render properly. The use of another browser is highly recommended (supported browsers).

Patent documents with large abstracts (over 1 MB) in Korean can now be handled by Espacenet, which now remains stable when these documents are specifically searched for or when a result list that contains these documents is sorted, e.g. by descending publication date.

Document pane

The display of drawings has been optimised. In default viewing modes, images are not truncated anymore and the need for slider use is minimised.

In some cases, highlighting was not displayed correctly. This has been fixed.

Classification area

When the user printed the classification search area in Firefox (right click / print), the first and last pages appeared as blank pages. This bug has been fixed.

Filters

Espacenet does not crash anymore when a filter for applicants or inventors that contain a semicolon, for example “RSR TECHN INC ;”, is applied.

Patent Translate

In some instances, Patent Translate proposed incorrect list of languages, for example English for English descriptions or claims. This has been fixed now.

The Espacenet database contains searchable machine translations in English for description and claims that are not available in this language. The Patent Translate button was, however, erroneously made available for these machine translations. Now Patent Translate is not displayed anymore on the machine translated text view, but is still available for the original language text if you want to obtain a version with the latest translation technology. As a reminder, all EPO member states’ languages can be translated into English, German or French, while the Asian languages and Russian can only be translated into English.

Download

Downloaded descriptions and claims in Arabic font are now rendering properly.

Erroneous characters, wording and/or tags were sometimes displayed in exported result lists. This issue has been fixed.

See also this forum entry for a list of known issues and workarounds.

Espacenet 1.20.1 release notes - 22 February 2021

Usability

In the Bibliographic data view, there were layout issues and Espacenet was delivering oversized drawings. These were particularly common on smaller screens such as laptops, and it made the application difficult to use at times. Espacenet now calculates the size of the drawing displayed in the Bibliographic data, Description and Claims views, so you do not need to use the scroll bars. You can now adjust the width of the result list and collapse it, a feature that is particularly useful in the case of tablet-sized devices. In the collapsed view, you can still use the keyboard navigation: use the up and down arrow or "n" and "p" keys (i.e. next and previous) to navigate between results. You can also adjust the drawing width to allow you to focus on other parts.

If necessary, you can reset the screen layout in My Espacenet (My settings) if you find it difficult to operate the system with the default layout adjustments rendered by the application.

Stability and scrolling on mobile devices has been improved: the interaction is now smoother (e.g. headers no longer disappear or bounce up and down).

Document pane

Sometimes xml tags appeared in the Bibliographic data view. This has been fixed.

In addition to claims as originally filed, Espacenet displays a tree showing the interdependency between the claims. A bug meant that it was only possible to render the claims tree in English. Now this also works in French and German, as originally intended.

In the Description view, paragraphs and claims were being misrepresented and this has now been improved. Much of the historical text in Espacenet is derived from OCR and it is sometimes difficult to determine the quality of the claim and paragraph numbering. These numbers are now often only displayed when they are likely to be reliable. Please remember that the OCRed text in the Description and Claims views is there to help you to find relevant data, but you should check the Original document view (document in pdf format) e.g. when making citations as it is the only truly reliable source of information.

Browsing the Citations table was cumbersome especially on small devices, owing to the large white spaces and very high rows. This was aggravated by the fact that non‑patent literature citations do not have a publication number. So, the sorting order of the columns has been changed (showing the Citation origin first) and rows with many entries are collapsed by default (you can expand them if necessary).

Filters and statistics

In the past, the Filters function failed when there was only one document in the result list. This has been resolved.

This release also includes other improvements that are not visible to the user. These improvements are not mentioned here.

See this forum entry for a list of known issues and workarounds.

Espacenet 1.18.0 release notes - 9 December 2020

Result list

 

When you select Drawings only in the result list, Espacenet now sorts the drawings by the number of the page they appear on. Previously they were in a random order. Espacenet now also shows the publication number and page number when you enlarge a drawing by hovering over it in the result list.

Titles in Asian characters were not shown correctly in downloaded result lists in csv format. This has been fixed.

Espacenet allows you to print or download the first 500 results in xlsx and csv format and now any 100 front pages in pdf format from these 500 results. Previously, errors were sometimes encountered when printing or downloading, depending on the data range requested. This has been fixed, as has a related error leading to a duplication of hits in the result list.

Document pane

In classification searches, sometimes fragments of the search query appeared in the Bibliographic data view. This has been fixed.

Where available, the default language for abstracts, descriptions and claims is now always the selected interface language. An improved algorithm is now used to identify which language the user expects to see.

Previously Espacenet missorted some tabs and did not show all that were available. Now it shows additional tabs if those subsections are available in the metadata (e.g. DNA Sequence). The selection of a subsection (e.g. Claims) is sticky, which means that the subsection remains selected when you switch to other hits in the result list, even if the order of the tabs changes. Espacenet defaults to Bibliographic data when the subsection selected does not exist.

Classification search

Previously, when the Classification search was reopened, preferences were lost (e.g. view the CPC hierarchy as a tree structure or only highlight CPC symbols). Now they are stored for future use.

Miscellaneous

Performance has been optimised in various parts of Espacenet.

This release also includes other improvements that are not visible to the user. These improvements are not mentioned here.

See this forum entry for a list of known issues and workarounds.

Espacenet 1.17.0 release notes - 11 November 2020

Document pane

When you navigated between different publications in the same family, the selected language was not always indicated. This has been fixed.

Highlighting is now also shown in the description and claims of the WO publication that takes the place of an EP publication (Article 153(3) EPC). This did not work before.

In some cases, the bulk machine translated description was not shown. Now more English bulk translations are shown than before.

In some cases when you selected the backward citations (cited documents) of all family members, only the ones of the selected document were shown. This has been fixed.

Non-patent literature

Searching for “XP” in Smart search is correctly interpreted as a search for the term “XP” in all text or name fields. However, Advanced search used to put “XP” in the All numbers field because it interpreted it as a number search for non-patent literature documents starting with “XP”. This has been fixed.

Please note that in new Espacenet you can get the bibliographic data on XP documents by searching for “CT= XP…”: searching e.g. for CT=XP03* will retrieve all patents citing NPL documents that start with “XP03”. Navigating to the cited documents in the citations pane and moving them to the result list will allow you to retrieve the bibliographic data of those XP documents.

The breadcrumb trail now indicates the journey for XP documents in the same way as it does for patent documents.

Classification search

Printing the tree view to show the dependencies of CPC codes is now possible in supported browsers. To do this e.g. in Chrome, you will need to select Background graphics under More settings in the Print dialog.

Print and download

Espacenet shows you the search statement and the filter criteria when you print or download a result list or the front pages of the documents found. In the past, however, the reference to excluded filter items was not shown correctly. This has been fixed and certain typographic conventions applied in the layout of the download have been harmonised with the layout you see on screen. Also in the past, when you searched with several search items separated by spaces, the link to the query displayed in the download did not work properly. This too has been fixed.

The title, query and filters were not fully visible in the downloads for complex searches. Now lines are wrapped so that no information is lost.

When you downloaded result lists in xlsx format, the content of the results was sometimes split between consecutive pages but that is no longer the case.

Keyboard navigation

Keyboard navigation in Espacenet (e.g. with the tab key) allows you to use Espacenet without a mouse. This can be helpful for visually impaired persons. Now the user focus in certain parts of the application is clearer, e.g. when you select the RSS feed for the INPADOC patent family.

See also this forum entry for a list of known issues and workarounds.

Espacenet 1.16.0 release notes - 14 October 2020

Bibliographic data

Espacenet did not work properly when you selected a specific language for the abstract and then moved on to a different result in the result list that did not comprise the selected language. This has been fixed.

Description

Descriptions of documents with certain kind codes (e.g. USH47H) were not displayed correctly. This has been fixed.

Original document

Like Euro-PCT Notices (A0 documents), US X6 documents (e.g. certificates of corrections) are now also displayed in the Original document pane. They appear under the Additional tab and can be downloaded.

Patent family

The Legal events tab now displays the most recent publication of an application. In addition, whenever there is an AO publication in a family, events relating to later publications in the family are now shown. This did not work before.

Print

The print function has also been enabled for non-patent documents (XP documents) and their citing documents.

Data transfer

The data transfer volume has been reduced by tailoring the response more precisely to the user request (e.g. download of front pages). This makes the application faster.

This release comprises other improvements that are not visible to the user and are not mentioned here.

See this forum entry for a list of known issues and workarounds.

Espacenet 1.15.1 release notes - 14 September 2020

Download

The download and print file now shows which criterion was used for sorting the downloaded result list (relevance, priority or publication date).

Patent translate

The dropdown patent translate appears only in case that the content of the selected document pane can be translated. Inconsistencies when displaying the patent translate button when navigating between panes with and without content have been fixed.

Bibliographic data pane

Sometimes the language of the applicant and inventor heading did not change when changing the language interface. This has been fixed.

Filters

The number of filter items retrieved per filter category has been increased considerably. This should make it easier e.g. to find applicants or inventors with specific countries of residence or to select various spelling variants of the same applicant.

The truncation of large numbers in the date graph in the filter has been fixed. Also, the numbers in these graphs are expressed in thousands or millions as deemed appropriate for better readability.

This release comprises other improvements that are not visible to the user and are not mentioned here.

See this forum entry for a list of known issues and workarounds.

Espacenet 1.14.3 release notes - 26 August 2020

Breadcrumbs

The selected document was sometimes omitted from the breadcrumb trail. The breadcrumb trail now shows the selected document number irrespective of whether or not the result list is shown.

Document pane

In classic Espacenet, when copying the page bookmark comprising the title and patent number to a Word or Excel file, the copied data includes the hyperlink to Espacenet. This handy feature is now also available in the new interface. Tip: this feature works best if you select the items you want to copy backwards, i.e. starting with the last character of the title (omitting the space) and copy them to the clipboard.

CPC combination sets (C-sets) that are invention-related are displayed in bold in the bibliographic data pane. C-sets relating to additional information are now displayed in non-bold.

Occasional omission of information identifying the description text as a machine translation. This information has now been added.

The unwanted truncation of the description of some long documents has now been fixed.

Advanced search

The field operators (all, any, etc.) were interpreted as text when capitalised. Capitalisation no longer interferes with the search behaviour.

Classification search

Deep linking to specific classification codes in the classification browser has been restored.

Mobile devices

The cross (X), which instantly removes all search terms in the smart search query, has been restored on mobile devices.

This release comprises other improvements that are not visible to the user and are not mentioned here.

See this forum entry for a list of known issues and workarounds.

Espacenet 1.13.3 release notes - 13 July 2020

Earliest priority date

A patent application can claim more than one priority. Espacenet's bibliographic data pane shows all of the claimed priorities (number and date). However, only the earliest priority date is taken into account in the filter function, the result list download and the citation table. The wording has been changed from "Priority date" to "Earliest priority date" to make this clearer to the user.

Document pane

In the bibliographic data pane, WO documents were sometimes incorrectly sorted according to the priority document's country code.

Now all publications are sorted alphabetically according to their publication number.

Missing highlighting of XP documents in the citation tab has been restored.

Filters

Filter tokens that appear at the top of the result list disappeared when opening the search via the breadcrumb trail. Now filtering remains intact and the filter tokens are visible.

Interface

Sometimes messages indicating the non-availability of patent information details, e.g. "description not found", were displayed until the system had loaded the available data. Now the error message is only shown if it is clear that no data is available.

Users reported an instability issue during a new interface release. This issue is now fixed and a warning message has been added for users using older versions.

This release also includes a number of necessary improvements that are not visible to the user. These improvements are not mentioned here.

See this forum entry for a list of known issues and workarounds.

Espacenet 1.12.0 release notes - 15 June 2020

Result list

Since release 1.10.0, searching for a document publication with a specific kind code displays the document with the relevant kind code instead of the earliest available publication of the application. This, however, is only the case when you search for individual documents. In the new release, the kind codes in the result list correspond fully to your search criteria. If you search for multiple documents (e.g. pn= EPB*), the Espacenet result list will display all publications matching the kind code specified.

Similar to the display format in classic Espacenet, the patent number is now shown with the selected application's other publication kind codes in brackets, e.g. EP0881463A2 (A3,B1,B8). This helps the user to quickly see which document stages have been published, e.g. to check whether an application has been granted or amended. Please note that the kind codes in brackets indicate the existence of a document, but in some jurisdictions (e.g. Japan), the publication numbers associated with the various kind codes may differ. You will find full information in the Published as section on the document pane. In the case of divisional applications, the result list only shows the publication of the selected application. The publication kind code of other divisional applications may be found in the Published as section on the Bibliographic data tab.

When you download and print a result list, Espacenet now includes all publications associated with an application (e.g. A1, B1, etc.) in the Publication number column - not just the earliest available publication.

Applicant names are standardised to a certain degree in Espacenet, combining the different spelling variants of the same applicant name. Espacenet now shows the non-standardised or original name if the standardised applicant name is missing.

In the Text and thumbnails view, the front-page drawings are now shown instead of a systematic display of the document's first drawings. This is to ensure the best representation of the invention as proposed by the applicant.

Document view

Analysis of large families with multiple citations is now more stable and responsive.

The list of patents in the Citations tab can be moved to the result list for further exploration. Non-patent literature citations cannot be explored any further. In the new release, the button for moving citations to the result list is masked out if only non-patent literature documents are cited.

Minor bug fixes and improvements not visible to the user are not described here.

See this forum entry for a list of known issues and workarounds.

Espacenet 1.11.1 release notes - 18 May 2020

Copying My patents list from classic Espacenet

You can now copy your My patents list from classic Espacenet to new Espacenet. In new Espacenet, simply select the double-arrow symbol in My Espacenet -> My settings -> Saved lists -> My patents to see the items in your My patents list in classic Espacenet. When you select Copy all to My patents, the tool will tick each copied item and change its background colour from grey to blue. Any item that is not copied will be displayed with a cross and a red background. If that happens, we recommend that you repeat the above procedure after a few days. If you update your My patents list in classic Espacenet, you can again repeat the above procedure to copy any additional patents in classic to new Espacenet. The grey circle beside the double-arrow symbol indicates the number of items in classic Espacenet that have not yet been copied to My patents in new Espacenet.

This feature will work if you are using both versions in the same browser on the same computer.

Please remember the general principle that adding another publication of a family that is already in My patents will not increase the number of families listed. However, the star icon is filled in for both documents because both are in My patents. The same principle applies when copying patents from classic Espacenet.

Result list

Where only one document is found, you will now see the document pane only. Previously there were circumstances where this did not work. If, however, you want to see the result-list entry of that one document, simply open it from the breadcrumb trail.

Minor bug fixes and improvements not visible to the user are not described here.

See this forum entry for a list of known issues and workarounds.

Espacenet 1.10.0 release notes - April 2020

General

  • Error messages were reported after users failed to close their browser on release of a new version of Espacenet. Espacenet will now restart the service automatically.

Result list

  • In cases where a Euro-PCT application is published in one of the EPO's three official languages and therefore not republished by the EPO in accordance with Article 153(3) EPC, the downloaded front pages now include the PCT publication's front pages instead of a message signalling the non-availability of the EP documents. In the event that the feature does not work in your browser version, we recommend updating to the latest version of your browser (see the forum entry on supported browsers).

Document pane

  • Right-clicking a publication number in the Published as section in the Bibliographic data view or in the Patent family view now opens the document with the appropriate kind code in a new tab/window.
  • Searches for a document publication with a specific kind code now displays the document with the relevant kind code. Please note that this currently works only for searches for a single document. If you search for multiple documents, Espacenet will, as in the past, display the earliest publications of the applications available in the database.
  • The URL format https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search?q=pn%3DEP1000000B1 now displays the requested document with its specified kind code. Before this fix, it displayed the earliest available publication of the application.
  • This issue involving citations not displayed if the search query included terms that were present in NPL citation titles has been fixed.
  • In cases where a Euro-PCT publication takes the place of an EP publication in accordance with Article 153(3) EPC, both the Euro-PCT publication that replaces the EP publication and a Euro-PCT notice stating that fact are now displayed in the Original document view and downloadable via the three-dot menu.

Filters

  • Up to now, the windows in the Filters area for searching for specific filter items were too small to visualise long search terms. A dynamic design has now been introduced to optimise the window space.
  • The unwanted overlay of the dropdown symbol and the filter header at high zoom levels has been fixed.

Minor bug fixes and improvements not visible to the user are not described here.

See this forum entry for a list of known issues and workarounds.

Espacenet 1.8.1 release notes - February 2020

Release 1.8.1 of Espacenet includes the following new features and bug fixes:

Responsive design

  • The functionality of the header that disappears to provide more space for the content has been improved.

Document pane

  • The default language for INPADOC legal events has been changed to English, irrespective of the interface language.
  • When the bibliographic data tab was printed, some content on C-sets was missing. Now it is not.
  • Patent Translate no longer disappears when you select the description or claims, as it sometimes did.
  • In some patent publications, formatting symbols were displayed in the abstract. Now they are not.
  • The problem whereby in some publications the link to the European Patent Register was missing has been fixed.

Advanced search

  • The field immediately after a proximity search field is now more stable and better synchronised with the Smart search bar.
  • Classification fields now have a red frame again.

Minor bug fixes and improvements not visible to the user are not described here.

See this forum entry for a list of known issues and workarounds.

Espacenet 1.7.3 release notes - January 2020

Release 1.7.3 of Espacenet includes the following new features and bug fixes:

New features

Responsive design

  • When you scroll on mobile devices, the header disappears to provide more space for the content.

Result list

  • In the previous release, when there was not enough room in the result list to display the full applicant name, the applicant name was not shown at all and replaced with an ellipsis ("…"). Now, Espacenet displays as much of the name as possible before the ellipsis.

Documents view

  • The display of non-patent literature (NPL) and bibliographic data content has been improved.
  • For patents that have a large number of citations, the previous release implemented a special button in the citation document view to enable the retrieval of all citations via the query "ct= ". This query was, however, not saved in the search history. Now it is.
  • Simple family members can now be explored in the patent family view: left clicking on any of the simple family members will display the corresponding bibliographic data.

Bug fixes

Result list

  • Using the breadcrumb navigation caused Espacenet to crash on some rare occasions. Use of the breadcrumb navigation is now more stable.

Filters

  • Using the filters caused Espacenet to crash on some rare occasions. The stability of the filter module has now been improved.

Minor bug fixes and improvements not visible to the user are not described here.

See this forum entry for a list of known issues and workarounds.

Espacenet 1.7.0 release notes - December 2019

This release 1.7.0 of Espacenet includes the following updates and bug fixes:

General

  • Elimination of display errors in the interface (e.g. partly visible IPC symbols)
  • IPC and CPC no longer missing in the result list downloads
  • Full (selected) stars indicating that a document has been added to My patents no longer revert to normal (not selected) stars after page reload

Smart and Advanced search

  • Search terms are trimmed to remove any extra spaces

Result list

  • In the result list handling menu, the Sort by menu item disappeared after exploring citations; this has now been fixed

Documents view

  • Where a search returns only one result or a specific document has been called, the result list is now hidden to maximise the space available for displaying the document
  • Improvements to Patent Translate, where users could not select the right language or translate the relevant document part
  • Improvement to the export of the INPADOC family for some documents
  • Improvements relating to the display of right-to-left languages (e.g. Arabic)

Filters

  • It is now easier to use the graphic overview screen to filter your results according to various criteria

Minor bug fixes and improvements not visible to the user are not described here.

Espacenet 1.6.1 release notes - November 2019

New Espacenet

Espacenet is an EPO database containing over 110 million patent documents - full technical descriptions and drawings of inventions - from over 100 countries.

New Espacenet is a complete overhaul of classic Espacenet, offering you

  • a new, smooth user experience from search to results
  • the possibility of searching in all data, including full text, by default
  • improved result list handling and inspection
  • intuitive and easy query building
  • filtering and statistical analyses of results
  • help at source
  • responsive design.

These release notes provide an overview of the features and changes compared to classic Espacenet.

User experience and features

Landing page

  • Clean landing page
  • Smart search at the top
  • A new way to select a patent authority's user interface in any language offered by that authority

Smart search

  • Query visible at the top of the page at all times and readily accessible for further refinement
  • A greater number of searchable fields (see Annex 1)

Result list

  • State-of-the-art automatic ranking by relevance in different views, including drawings (i.e. text only, text and thumbnails, compact list, drawings only)
  • Drawings can be enlarged by hovering over them

Detail view

  • Result list and document details visible side by side
  • Drawings displayed together with bibliographic data, description and claims
  • Drawings and original documents can be opened in separate pop-up windows
  • Sorting of citations, legal events and families according to various criteria
  • Latest legal events table for all INPADOC family members

Advanced search

  • Advanced search always synchronised with Smart search
  • Dynamic search building
  • add fields
  • select search field
    • broad category (e.g. Text fields, Names, Classifications) or
    • specific field (e.g. Applicants, Claims, CPC)
  • use Group to create brackets for nested queries
  • use Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) between search fields, or comparison and proximity operators (Any, All, Proximity, =) between terms in a field
  • Full Advanced search template, i.e. query builder, can be displayed before a search is started or by resetting the search
  • Graphical representation of the whole query

Filters

  • Filter criteria to narrow down results
  • Apply or Exclude function
  • Statistical analyses, including graphical representations, of main applicants/inventors, countries, languages, dates, classification codes and applicant/inventors' country of residence

My Espacenet area for

  • Saving patents of interest
  • Re-running previous queries
  • Changing settings related to history / saved lists

Download

  • Improved layout of the result list exported into Excel
  • Statistical filter analyses

Help

  • Tooltips: short messages about user interaction with Espacenet. Activated by hovering the mouse over some elements of the user interface
  • Popup tips: context-specific help or definitions for specific items in the interface. Can be activated or deactivated
  • Glossary: a guide to terminology used in patent information

Responsive design

For optimal user experience, new Espacenet adapts the layout to different devices (large screens, laptops, tables and smartphones).

Feedback

See this forum entry for a list of known issues and workarounds.

 

We will continue to collect your feedback via a standardised questionnaire. Simply follow the link in the main navigation bar.

We will not be able to comment on your feedback. Should you have any questions requiring a direct response from us, please post them on the forum .

Reporting data errors

 

Please report data errors relating to the document displayed in the detail view from the link in the main navigation bar.

Annex 1: Searchable fields in new Espacenet

Field identifier in Smart search

Description / Equivalent
search field in Advanced search

Example

in new Espacenet

in classic Espacenet

nftxt

-

All text fields or names

nftxt="extreme uv lithography"

ntxt

txt

Title, abstract or names

ntxt=microscope lens

ti

ti

Title

ti="mouse trap"

ab

ab

Abstract

ab="mouse trap"

desc

desc

Description

desc=lens

claims

claims

Claims

claims=laser

ta

ta

Title or abstract

ta="laser printer"

ctxt

-

Title, abstract or claims

ctxt=milking ctxt=robots

ftxt

extftxt

All text fields (title, abstract, description or claims)

ftxt=nanoparticles

in

in

Inventors

in=smith

pa

pa

Applicants

pa=siemens

ia

ia

Inventors or applicants

ia=apple OR ia="ries klaus"

pd 1

pd

Publication date

pd=20180107

pr

pr

Priority number

pr=ep20050104792

pn

pn

Publication number

pn=ep1000000 pn=EPB12

ap

ap

Application number

ap=jp19890234567

num

num

Numbers

num=ep1000000

ipc

ipc

IPC

ipc=A63B49/08

cpc

cpc

CPC

cpc="A61K31/13"

cpcc

cpcc

CPC C-sets

cpcc="C08F297/02"

cl

cl

IPC or CPC

cl=C10J3

ct

ct

Cited documents

ct=ep1000000

 

1 You can search by the publication date of the earliest publication (e.g. EPA1) of a patent document but not by the publication dates of subsequent publications (e.g. EPB1). This is because subsequent publication dates are not indexed for search purposes.

Espacenet release notes - 26 August 2019

Following the launch of the CPC International project on 24/25 August 2019, Espacenet now displays CPCI data. This means that the authorities that have assigned CPC classification symbols are now displayed next to each classification symbol (see screenshot below).

 

Screenshot from Espacenet

CPC symbols will continue to be propagated at family level, which means that every member of the simple patent family will display the same CPCI symbols in the bibliographic data view.

Use of the field identifier "cpc" in Smart search or the search field "CPC" in Advanced search will still search all documents that have been assigned the CPC symbol in question, independently of the assigning authorities.

Espacenet, however, now offers the possibility of searching for documents where CPC symbols have been assigned by specific authorities. Here are some examples of queries you can use for this purpose:

cpc=(C08F220/26 prox/unit=sentence EP)
cpc=(C08F220/38 prox/unit=sentence (US, EP))
cpc=(C08F220/26/low prox/unit=sentence (US, KR, EP))
cpcc=(C07C37/08 prox/unit=sentence (CN, EP, US))
cpcc=(C08F218/08 prox/unit=sentence (C08F220/06, US, EP))

You may recall that when the "cpc" field identifier is used, "/low" can be added at the end of the classification symbol to include all children (i.e. sub-classification levels) in the search. /low is only needed at subgroup levels, e.g. C08F220/26/low. Up to the main group level, e.g. C08, C08F or C08F 220, the data is auto-posted, which means that all sub-levels are automatically searched at the same time. When searching for combination sets (the "cpcc" field identifier), use of "/low" is not supported.

You will find general information on the CPCI on the CPC website. For more details on the CPCI, please send an e-mail to cpc@epo.org.

Espacenet release notes - March 2018

There are two new features available in Espacenet.

1) New full-text field identifier extftxt

The new extftxt field identifier lets you perform full-text searches for keywords anywhere in a patent document (title, abstract, description and claims). To perform a full-text search in Smart search, run a normal search (step 1). By default, the search is run in the bibliographic data collection. Click Refine search (step 2) to be able to select one of the three full-text searchable collections available and run your search again (step 3).

Step 1

 

Screenshot from Espacenet

Step 2

 

Screenshot from Espacenet

Step 3

 

Screenshot from Espacenet

 

Screenshot from Espacenet

2) New search feature for finding inventors or applicants in a country

Espacenet lets you search for partners residing in countries that could be of interest for your business or research field. In Advanced search, just enter a country code between square brackets, e.g. [CN], in the Inventor(s) or Applicant(s) field. In Smart search, use the following query: in=[CC] or pa=[CC], e.g. pa=[JP].

 

Screenshot from Espacenet

 

Screenshot from Espacenet

 

Screenshot from Espacenet

 

Screenshot from Espacenet
Espacenet release notes - October 2017

1. "Latest updates" section replaced by "Data coverage"

The Latest updates section on the Espacenet homepage has been renamed Data coverage and its content replaced by links to the Latest bibliographic coverage and Latest full-text coverage pages.

2. Global Dossier - RSS feeds now available for patent monitoring in Espacenet

For some years now RSS feeds have been available for monitoring changes in EP files, in the "All documents" section of the European Patent Register.

With the latest release, Espacenet also offers access to the Global Dossier RSS feed for EP and Chinese dossiers, allowing you to receive alerts on dossier changes.

The family-based RSS feed is accessible in Espacenet from the INPADOC patent family view (Fig. 1).

To receive alerts on changes to the files of INPADOC family members of Global Dossier's participating patent offices, click on the RSS dossier icon and follow the instructions to subscribe to the RSS family dossier feed.

Currently, RSS feeds are available for EP and CN documents (see help files for coverage). In the future, the family-based RSS alerts will be extended to further participating offices.

 

Screenshot from Espacenet
Fig. 1 RSS feed - family dossiers

3. CCD - added download function

The CCD application, accessible via Espacenet in the Cited documents view (Fig. 2) and the IP5 website, now has an added download function. This new function allows you to export the prior art cited by family members of a single patent application in CSV or Excel format (Fig. 3). Some of the data attributes in Excel format will have active hyperlinks to Espacenet (Fig. 4). The CSV format allows you to import the data into your own patent management systems.

 

Screenshot from EspacenetFig. 2 Access to CCD

 

Screenshot from Espacenet
Fig. 3 Download function in CCD

 

Screenshot from Espacenet
Fig. 4 Exported data in Excel
Espacenet release notes - November 2016

1. Extension of the Global Dossier service

The Global Dossier service has now been extended to encompass further authorities participating in the WIPO CASE initiative.

In addition to patent application dossiers ("file wrappers") from the world's five largest patent offices, it now also includes public dossiers from the Canadian Patent Office as well as PCT applications.

The register link will (where available and only then) remain in the navigation bar whereas the Global Dossier link, when available, will be displayed in the content area of the bibliographic view and in the INPADOC family view.

 

Screenshot from Espacenet

 

Screenshot from Espacenet

2. Access to Global Dossier and links to the European Patent Register and national register

The Espacenet interface displays Global Dossier icons and links to registers for certain authorities providing access to the Global Dossier and to register information, respectively.

 

Screenshot from EspacenetScreenshot from Espacenet

In order to avoid any ambiguity, access to Global Dossier and links to the European Patent Register and available national registers have been separated.

When you click on a Global Dossier icon, the behaviour is the same as in the European Patent Register. For links to a national register, the respective national (or EP) register window will open where links/pages are available. For authorities/documents where no link to a register is available, no link will be displayed.

When you click on a Global Dossier icon, the respective Global Dossier window opens where links/pages are available. The icon is not visible when the respective file wrappers are not available.

For those authorities where Global Dossier is available (currently CA, CN, EP, JP, KR, US and WO) you will find a corresponding icon after the application number. This will link to the file inspection service of the respective authority. The Global Dossier link, when available, is displayed in the content area of the bibliographic view and in the INPADOC family view.

When you click on the Global Dossier icon next to the EP application number, the "All documents" view of the corresponding application in the EP Register opens.

 

Screenshot from Espacenet

 

Screenshot from Espacenet

With the extension of Global Dossier, the new authorities show a corresponding link to the existing information in the INPADOC patent family view below the publication information in the "Publication info" column.

 

Screenshot from Espacenet

3. List sorting

It is now also possible to sort your lists by publication date.

Provided there are fewer than 500 documents in the result list, it can be sorted in ascending or descending order by Publication Date (result list only), Priority Date, Inventor, Applicant or CPC.

4. Latest full-text coverage and latest bibliographic coverage

The layout of the automated daily update of the coverage provided by the EPO's full-text and bibliographic database has changed. Coverage tables are accessible at the following links:

Coloured rows indicate that the data has changed compared to the previous day. The details of the changes are indicated in green. If a new row of data is created, all entries are in green. If gaps in coverage are filled without any change of the first/latest publication, only the total number of documents is in green.

Espacenet release notes - March 2016 - v.2

1. Full-text search in the worldwide collections

Espacenet now supports full-text (FT) search in English, French and German.

To use full-text search, you must first select the collection you wish to search in, i.e.

  • Worldwide EN - collection of published applications in English offers full-text search in English for all documents published in English which are available in full text (description and claims) from the worldwide database, or
  • Worldwide FR - collection des demandes publiées en Français offers full-text search in French for all documents published in French which are available in full text (description and claims) from the worldwide database, or
  • Worldwide DE - Sammlung veröffentlichter Anmeldungen auf Deutsch offers full-text search in German for all documents published in German which are available in full text (description and claims) from the worldwide database.

These collections include the content of the former EP and WIPO full-text databases.

1.1. Full-text search: Advanced search

Make the appropriate choice from the drop-down menu in the field Select the collection you want to search in:

 

Screenshot from Espacenet

Then enter at least one keyword in that language in the Enter keywords field:

 

Screenshot from Espacenet

1.2. Full-text search: Smart search

Enter keyword(s) and click Search as usual.

 

Screenshot from Espacenet

Then click Refine search as indicated below:

 

Screenshot from Espacenet

This takes you to the Smart search screen where you can choose a full-text collection from the drop-down menu and use the following field identifiers in connection with your search terms:

ftxt = to search full text in the description and claims

desc = to search full text in the description

claims = to search full text in the claims.

The default (field identifier = txt) is for searching in the title and abstract as well as in the applicant and inventor fields.

 

Screenshot from Espacenet

2. Search using combination sets of classifications

Combination sets ("C-sets", "Combi sets") are ordered lists of linked CPC symbols created by patent examiners. Combination sets classify technical features in context or "taken in combination". The scope of a combination set can vary across technical fields.

These classification combination sets are now searchable in Espacenet. Please note you can only search for combination sets in Smart search and to do so you must use the field identifier "cpcc".

You can enter up to ten classification symbols in the search field each separated by a space and the system will use a default Boolean AND operator.

Example:

Screenshot from Espacenet

 

This example retrieves patent documents that have been assigned combination sets that include C08F8/30 and C08F287/02.

You can also refine your search by using the Boolean operators AND or OR along with proximity operators.

Examples:

  • Boolean: cpcc=C08F8/30 OR cpcc=C08F297/02
  • Boolean: cpcc=C08F8/30 AND cpcc=C08F297/02
  • Proximity: cpcc=C08F8/30 prox/distance<3 cpcc=C08F297/02

For further information on the use of Boolean and proximity operators, please refer to Help in Espacenet.

The combination sets are also visible in the Bibliographic data panel under C-sets.

 

Screenshot from Espacenet

These appear once you click more (if applicable) in the cooperative field:

 

Screenshot from Espacenet

3. Additional access point to the Common Citation Document

A new link to the Common Citation Document (CCD) has been added to Espacenet.

You can now look up the list of documents in the CCD from the Cited documents section as well as from the INPADOC patent family section:

Screenshot from Espacenet

 

 

Screenshot from Espacenet

4. Secure access - https

Secure access to Espacenet is now available. This means that you can search in Espacenet within a verified secure domain. Espacenet has an Extended Validation Certificate as indicated by a green address bar. It also verifies that all communications between your browser and the website are encrypted.