Hi-tech information now more accessible as UN agency improves database

Cutting edge technological information, contained in international patent applications, will now be more easily available online after the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) improved and upgraded its online database, the agency said today.

WIPO, set up to ensure that the rights of creators and owners of intellectual property are protected worldwide, has put over 1 million applications – representing 20 years of the most important technological advances – on its upgraded PatentScope database where they are available for free consultation.

PatentScope is a valuable resource as new technologies are often disclosed for the first time as international patent applications. The patent applications filed under WIPO’s Patent Cooperation Treaty system and accessible through the PatentScope service, are typically those that inventors consider to be the most valuable and therefore worth patenting internationally.

During the 21st century, intellectual property – such as inventions, designs, trademarks, books, music, and films – will play an ever more important role internationally and are now used and enjoyed on every continent on earth, with WIPO also seeking to ensure that inventors and authors are recognized and rewarded for their ingenuity. The number of member States belonging to WIPO now stands at 183.