World Water Day
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How searching patent documentation can support innovation and sustainability
World Water Day, established by the United Nations on 22 March 1993, highlights the urgent global need for sustainable water management and universal access to safe water and sanitation.
One of the most important discoveries in medical history occurred in the mid-19th century, when English physician John Snow identified the source of a cholera outbreak in a public water pump. This finding not only dramatically improved public health and transformed society’s understanding of hygiene and clean water but has also sparked inspiration inventors worldwide ever since.
Espacenet, a treasure trove of worldwide inventions
It is not surprising that in Espacenet, the EPO’s worldwide database with more than 170 million patent documents, we find nearly 2 million patent families related to innovation in this field.
Image 1: Search in Espacenet with the keyword “water” in the search field “title” .
Patent classifications help us navigate and analyse these findings. You can use the filter options to group results according to technical fields. Just click on the symbols to understand what they stand for:
Image 2: Using classification can help to understand the technical content of a patent document.
A powerful search tool – Cooperative Patent Classification
A particularly powerful approach involves searching patents using the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) system. CPC-based searching enables precise retrieval of water-related technologies by organising inventions into detailed technical categories, such as water purification processes, desalination, wastewater recycling, leak detection, smart irrigation and climate-resilient infrastructure. Unlike keyword searches—which may miss relevant inventions due to terminology differences or language variations—CPC searches capture technologies based on their technical substance.
You can also use them when you actively would like to find a technical solution for your problem:
Image 3: Using classification can also help to find relevant patent documents.
Image 4: Searching by classification in Espacenet leads to a smaller dataset focused on specialised technologies.
The water technology platform
The EPO technology platform on innovation in water technologies helps you easily navigate our repository of over 170 million patent documents. Through the two subsections clean water and protection from water, you can quickly find the Espacenet query used to identify patents within a specific water concept and then tailor it to your specific needs, broadening or narrowing the search.
World Water Day revisited
World Water Day provides an opportunity to explore how intellectual property supports the tracking of innovative technologies water management and contributes to the circulation of knowledge for a smarter and more sustainable world.
Keywords: Patent Knowledge News, patent knowledge, patent search, Espacenet, World water day, sustainability, CPC, patent classification
