What databases are used in Citation Eagle (CE)?
CE covers data from more than 90 countries. It accesses the EPO's DOCDB and supplements its data from the respective national or regional Patent Offices, including from the US, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Germany, etc.
Which countries are covered in CE?
CE currently covers data from more than 90 countries.
Is CE based on single patents or patent families?
CE is a family based system based on the EPO Simple Family rules, rather than INPADOC. In cases where several National Phase entries of the same family were to cite one and the same prior art document, we only create one alert.
What type of information does CE include?
To provide users with advanced and targeted filtering options, CE collects and manually supplements information such as Originating IP Firm, Filing Agent, Patent Legal Status, Case Status such as "Published" or "Accepted", or Type of Citation, along with core bibliographic patent information. For further full text documents we deeplink to ESPACENET.
How often is CE updated?
Updates are performed in the daily or weekly rhythm set by the respective Patent Offices for the various data streams that CE procures.
Do you distinguish between the different types of citations?
Yes, because not all citations are equal. We currently classify and distinguish between the following classes and types: Highly Relevant (X), Relevant if Combined (Y with O or P or R), Cited in Application (D, L), Technology Background (A, E), Theory (T), Unclassified (I, and US citations). Note, that the US examiner citations are included in Relevant if Combined (Y with O or P or R) and the US applicant citations are included in Cited in Application (D, L).
What type of patent documents are included?
All cases are included at a family level (EPO Simple Family). For example, you will only receive one notification upon first reference of the prior art, i.e. if the PCT was cited at publication of a New Case application, and consecutively cited by a UK patent examiner in the National Phase Entry of this PCT, there will not be a second notification.
What kind of citations do you capture?
We cover all citations that are displayed on the front page of a patent application or patent upon publication, along with citations that will be introduced by the examiner in the course of the patent examination. We don't include patents that may be mentioned in the full text of a patent.
Is there a difference between data sets for law firms and corporates?
No, we access the same database for both queries.
How does your service differ from a traditional patent watch service?
Most traditional patent watch services require you to provide a list of all patents that you would like to have monitored. This requires investing lots of time and effort to keep your search pool current. Citation Eagle knows which patents belong to which organisation, or which IP Firm is looking after which patents. CE also monitors the legal status of a patent. So if you have selected a filter in CE to only focus on "prior art which is still alive", once the patent is abandoned, CE will automatically take it out of the alert pool.
Patent professionals who require a monitoring system are often time poor, or only interested in specific risks and opportunities. Receiving too many alert emails or too much untargeted information deters most professional from using a patent monitoring system. CE has collected and supplemented patent records with unique information to provide practical, and actionable filters. This makes the CE system focused on individual business needs and very manageable.
In what instances would I draw a historic report in CE?
Many systems start tracking your list of patents from the day that you set up the search or alert. We provide you with historic reports that cover you from the day you sign up to Citation Eagle, ensuring you don't miss important citations that were recorded previously. You can elect to retrieve citations that were recorded up to five years ago, or as recent as six months ago.
Another practical use of the historic report in CE, is if you want to get a general feeling for how your patent portfolio might overlap with the portfolios of others. Reaching five years back will give you good insight into who has been citing you most, and where you might ignite a collaboration or licensing dialogue.
Another application is to provide CiE as a service to others. Drawing quarterly or biannual historic reports allows you to filter for opportunities or threats that are of value to your client.
How often should I expect to receive an email alert for one of my searches?
CE will send an email alert about New Cases as soon as we receive and have processed the data. Depending on what criteria you specify these may be as frequent as weekly or more infrequent. To assess the number of cases you could run a search, and elect to see results for the past six months. If you have six search results, you can expect to receive about one alert per month.
What triggers an alert?
Publication or Notification of Acceptance of a New Case, with citations to the prior art in question present, provided the case matches your filter criteria. The alert will be triggered 24 hours after we receive the data from the EPO or respective National Patent Office.
Can I define when I can receive the alerts e.g once a week, one a month?
No, alerts are sent to the user as soon as CE receives a match.
Can I set up for the different alerts be sent to different email addresses?
No, however we can add several users onto the one account so that they can receive the respective alerts.
Why or when should I choose the "Application accepted" over the "Application Published" filter?
To many patent proprietors or IP firms this is a question of strategy. Some organisations would not consider opposition procedures until the last possible moment, and therefore select the "Application Accepted" filter. Other organisations like to know about potential infringements or opportunities as soon as they become known, in which case they will not choose a filter, thereby receiving results as early as at publication.