Patent Lens

Patent Lens

The Patent Lens is an online patent search facility and knowledge resource, provided by CAMBIA, an independent, international non-profit organization dedicated to democratizing innovation. Launched in 2000, the Patent Lens allows free searching of over 10 million full-text patent documents, including United States patents and applications, Australian patents and applications, European patents and Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications. The Patent Lens is distinguished as being the only not-for-profit facility of its kind, with international coverage and links to non-patent literature and tutorials.

Searches of the Patent Lens can be undertaken using numerous variables, including full-text, title, abstract, inventor, applicant/assignee, publication number and filing number. A user is also able to search for lapsed, abandoned, or expired US patents via the INPADOC patent status and family information service. Patent families may be visualized using graphical trees as pdfs.

The Patent Lens currently links to regulatory data in the form of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Orange Book: Approved Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations. Biological sequence data is integrated via links to National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) GenBank and the Patent Lens' own gene sequences. The Patent Lens Sequence Project, commenced in June 2006, provides the only public facility to enable users to explore over 80 million DNA and protein sequences disclosed in patents.

Patent tutorials are available on the site covering patent claims, freedom to operate, patent inventorship, and continuing patent applications. Plant breeders' rights (PBR), also known as plant variety rights (PVR), are also addressed. This has the intention to 'forge a learning resource that participants in innovation systems at all levels... can use to learn of critical and timely issues relevant to improving the public good... by engaging with the patent system.'