cited documents of prior art search

[Schigolch]

contrary to other patent databases, e.g. EPO register, Patentscope does not provide access to documents cited by the ISA, in the written opinion, or preliminary examination.

However, even if EPO has been the ISA such documents are neither available in Patentscope, nor in later EP regional phase file inspection.

This is usually not a problem when patent documents are cited, but may be a problem if journal or handbook articles are cited.

Would the IB consider to add such documents to those already downloadable now?

[Iustin]

The International Bureau rarely receives copies of documents cited by International Searching Authorities, since the Treaty only requires copies to be sent to the applicant or to designated Offices (PCT Article 20(3)), and that only on request (though some Authorities include copies of the cited documents for the applicant as part of the search fee).  Even where we do have copies of cited documents in our files, we do not make them publicly available on Patentscope for copyright reasons, though they may be available to the applicant and designated Offices through the ePCT private file inspection service.

We do recognize that access to cited documents can be difficult and, with the assistance of International Searching Authorities, we hope to improve this considerably over the coming months and years both by increasing the number of cited documents available through private file inspection, and by providing links to freely available documents when we are able to reliably identify them automatically.  However, the public part of this work is unlikely ever to include direct access to non-patent literature which is not available free of charge.

Iustin