USPTO News - Release of the Global Patent Search Network (GPSN) with Access to Chinese Patent Documentation

Tonight, the USPTO announced the "Global Patent Search Network (GPSN) is now available via the USPTO website enabling users to access Chinese patent documentation to conduct prior art searches. Users can search Chinese patent documents in English or the Chinese language. Patent documents are available in full text Chinese and English machine translations. Also available are full document images of Chinese patents which are considered the authoritative Chinese patent document.

The GPSN provides users with access to a new searchable foreign patent collection including machine translations that allow quick analysis of relevant prior art.

Users can search documents including published applications, granted patents and utility models from 2008 to 2011. This collection will be periodically updated to include additional years of coverage.

Although Chinese patent documentation is the first foreign collection to be part of GPSN, the USPTO anticipates expanding the network with collections from other foreign IP Offices.

For more information and access to a GPSN Quick Reference Guide and FAQs, please visit our website at: http://www.uspto.gov/patents/process/search/index.jsp"

The USPTO requests any questions or comments be emailed to GPSN@uspto.gov.

This is a bit of good news, but I think the utility is limited because the documents are limited to just 2008 - 2011. No reasonable searcher would accept such a constraint in a patent search. For computers I think we need to go back to WW II up to the present.

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