ETSI has conducted a Database restructuring project (the “DARE project”) with the aim to increase transparency of IPR declarations recorded in ETSI. The DARE project resulted in the new ETSI IPR online database which is available for use since March 2011.
Some of the main features of the new ETSI IPR online database are:
- the usage of a master data reference model, which provides in particular a link to the EPO database “espacenet” allowing to auto-complete declared patent families,
- the availability of all scanned paper IPR declaration documents,
- prefilled submission forms are generated and sent via email for online IPR declarations,
- a modification history for IPR declarations and patents,
- top-down analysis queries in a dynamic reporting, allowing to get a statistical overview on declared IPR information and to drill-down into the details of the elements of the IPR declarations.
All declared IPRs which were accessible in the legacy ETSI IPR database have been migrated to this new ETSI IPR online database.
This user guide provides information/ explanation for the use of the functionalities of the ETSI IPR online database.
Any comments or problems with this application? Please let us know... helpdesk@etsi.org
This paragraph provides you with a basic overview of the main features of the ETSI IPR online database. For further details please go to chapter 3 et seq.:
Prior to making an IPR declaration online, the submitter must create an account:
- click on the “sign up” link (top right hand side of the page)
- create your account by completing the fields
- click on “add” to select your company name: enter a company name and select the appropriate one from the proposed list, or create an un-normalised company name
- check the box if you want your future declarations to be prefilled with your company name
- enter a password of your choice and confirm it
- check the final box of the disclaimer – to confirm that you are entitled to fill out the ETSI IPR declaration forms on behalf of your company.
- click on submit
A confirmation window will appear informing you that once your user account has been activated, you will receive your login and password by email.
In case you have forgotten your password, click on the link “Forgot your password?” and enter your email address. You will receive an email providing you a new password.
The home page of the ETSI IPR Online database consists of two menu sections “DECLARATION” and “DYNAMIC REPORTING”.
The menu item “SEARCH DECLARATION” enables you to search for IPR declarations submitted to ETSI by applying different search criteria. The search declaration feature focuses on finding particular IPR declaration documents.
2.2.1 Panel “Search declaration”
“Reference” field: Each declaration has an individual reference number attributed by the system. Hence if one knows this reference number, this field allows to perform a quick search to find the relevant declaration.
Example: search for “-201101” will find all IPR declarations (GDs and IS&LDs) whose declaration reference contains “-201101”. This would be the case for e.g. “ISLD-201101-003” or “GD-201101-001”.
“ETSI Projects” field: The list of project names comes from the ETSI master data source. You may search for declarations by specific Projects. This field allows you to select one or several projects to find all relevant declarations explicitly made for a specific project name. To reduce the number of displayed projects, type the project name in the “filter” box and click on “apply”. The project wizard will display the project names matching the searched filter value.
To remove one or several selected projects, click on the project(s) to be removed (holding the CTRL key for multiple selections), and click on the red cross.
“Work item no. / Standard no. / Specification no.” field: It is possible to search for a declaration by selecting one or more ETSI Standard or 3GPP Specification numbers. Clicking on the add button opens the Deliverable wizard. Type in either a Work Item number (e.g. RTS/TSGR-0125211), or a 3GPP specification number (e.g. TS 25.200), or an ETSI Standard number (TS 125 200).
Depending on the searched number type (Work Item, Standard number or Specification number), the result page may display all relevant Work Item/Standard numbers and/or all relevant Specification numbers. The wizard permits only one selection at the time.
It is possible to refine the Work item no. / Standard no. / Specification no. search by using the “title” field, the “version” field, “Technical body” field and also by searching by “Project” name.
To remove one or several selected Work item no. / Standard no. / Specification no., click on the one(s) to be removed (holding the CTRL key for multiple selections), and click on the red cross.
“Type” field: Only two types of declarations exist: General Declaration (“GD”) and the Information Statement and Licensing Declaration (“IS&LD”).
“Declaration date” fields: The date format used is dd/mm/YYYY. It is possible to search for declarations by date range
- Searching declarations relating to a specific day, type e.g.: “declaration date from 30/02/1999 to 30/02/1999”
- Searching declarations relating to a specific time range, type e.g.: “declaration date from 30/02/1999 to 30/12/1999”
- Searching declarations from a certain day, type e.g. “declaration date from 01/01/2000”. The result will display all declarations made from the selected date up to today.
Advice: you can type in the date by using the format dd/mm/YYYY rather than using the calendar wizard.
“Declarant/Affiliates are not prepared to grant licenses according to clause 6.1 of the ETSI IPR Policy” field: By selecting the option “Not prepared” it is possible to search specifically for declarations made for which the Declarant/Affiliates are not prepared to grant licenses according to clause 6.1 of the ETSI IPR Policy.
“Contains specific text” field: Migrated declarations from the legacy IPR database may contain free-text content in the licensing conditions. This field only applies to legacy data.
Clicking the “Search” button will display the list of declarations found according to the search criteria.
2.2.2 Search result table
In the second part, a table displays the found declarations fitting to the search criteria. Each table column can be sorted by clicking in the column header, and further filtered by providing filter values in the column headers’ text boxes.
On each found declaration, the user can open the declaration in view mode.
Advice: The user may choose “open in new tab/window” when clicking on the access links of the found declarations. By doing so, the search result screen is preserved, and it is possible to open several declarations at the same time for comparison.
The Dynamic Reporting enables you to view the relationship between elements contained in the IPR declarations allowing the provision of statistical overviews and specific details of the information contained in the IPR declarations.
The dynamic reporting follows a top-down analysis approach by which the user is able to filter the information contained in the ETSI IPR database according to certain criteria e.g.:
- select 1=”standard”. choose a specific standard, 2=”declaring companies”, 3=”patent family”, press submit - the result will display which company has declared patents to the chosen standard, and which patent families belonging to the declaring companies are concerned.
Once the query is executed:
- A dropdown list of result screen appears if more than 10 elements are to be displayed. The dropdown list gets populated by slices of 20 elements. Each slice can be added by clicking on the “‚” arrow at the end of the dropdown list, until the message “end of list” appears.
- you can type search characters which then filter the drop-down list for items containing the searched text.
- The displayed query result can be exported to a CSV-file.
Please note that the patent family concept is only available for normalised patents, since un-normalised patents do not have priority numbers.
Browser recommendation
The new ETSI IPR online database makes extensive use of JavaScript technology in the application screens. Therefore, it is recommended to use a recent version of the browsers Microsoft Internet ExplorerTM, Mozilla FireFoxTM or Google ChromeTM.
Please note that old versions of browsers may have reduced performance when interpreting JavaScript. Further, the browser Opera is not supported.
Screen resolution recommendation
The new ETSI IPR online database has been designed for a minimum screen resolution of 1024x768 pixels. However, the application is able to make use of higher screen resolutions for a wider display.
Anonymous users can only get read-only access to IPR declaration documents which are in “reflected” state.
The following paragraphs describe in more detail the global application elements of the ETSI IPR online database:
The user panel is available on all screens of the application. It allows logging in and logging out. The user panel allows to request a user account or to reset the password if the password has been forgotten.
The application menu is available on all screens of the application. The available menu items depend on the status of the current user, and if his/her user account is associated to an ETSI member company or not.
4.2.1 Menu section “Home”
Allows accessing the welcome page for the anonymous user, which is the search declaration page (see Search for IPR declarations).
4.2.2 Menu section “Declaration”
Allows accessing the application’s declaration management features, available for anonymous users:
- Search declarations (see Search for IPR declarations)
4.2.3 Menu section “Reporting”
Allows to access to the application’s reporting features, available for anonymous users:
- Dynamic reporting (see Dynamic Reporting)
The welcome page of an anonymous user is the search declarations page (see Search for IPR declarations).
The following chapter describes in further detail how to access IPR declarations.
In order to search and find contained IPR declarations (i.e. declaration documents), the user can make use of the “Search declaration” screen. The scope of findable declarations is limited by the access rights restrictions, i.e. to find declarations in a state other than “reflected”, the searching user must be the creating user or one of his/her colleagues.
5.1.1 Panel “Dynamic reporting”
The dynamic reporting panel gives a high-level statistical overview on the reflected IPR declarations recorded in the ETSI IPR database according to the following criteria:
- ETSI Projects: the number of ETSI projects to which patents or patent families have been declared, either directly to the project itself, or to a standard which belongs to the project
- Standards: the number of standards (ETSI work items/standards, or 3GPP specifications) to which patents or patent families have been declared
- Companies: the number of distinct declaring companies
- Patents: the number of patents which have been declared to standards or ETSI projects, either explicitly, or implicitly via the automatically imported patent family
- Declarations: the number of reflected GDs or IS&LDs documents
(See also Dynamic Reporting)
5.1.2 Panel “Search declaration” - criteria section
In the first part of the screen, the user can provide search filter values, to restrict the result of the searched declarations:
- Reference: the declaration document reference shall contain the searched value.
- Example: “ISLD-201101-001” will find a ISLD declaration with exactly that reference, provided that the declaration is accessible
- Example: “ISLD-2011” will find all accessible IS&LD declarations which have been initialised in 2011
- Declaring companies: the list of distinct declaring companies having at least one declaration made to ETSI. This list allows to select more than one entry at the time (keep CTRL-key pressed while selecting or un-selecting an item with the mouse). Typing the first letter(s) of the company name allows selecting the first fitting company name (Example: “XY” will select “XYZ Company”).
- ETSI Projects: Adding one project to the selected filter criteria is done via the ETSI project wizard, which is restricted to search mode only (see ETSI project wizard). The found declarations will be reduced to those which explicitly reference the ETSI project(s).
- Standards: Adding one standard (ETSI work item/standard number or 3GPP specification) to the selected filter criteria is done via the standard wizard, which is restricted to search mode only (see Standard wizard). The found declarations will be reduced to those which explicitly reference the standard(s), in the selected version if any.
- Type: restrict found declarations on those of the selected type (IS&LD, GD)
- Declaration date (from, to): declarations for which the declaration date (submission date for online declarations, or the signature date for declarations sent to ETSI via paper forms) matches with the provided date values
- Declarant/Affiliates are not prepared to grant licenses according to clause 6.1 of the ETSI IPR Policy: for IS&LD declarations where the declarant has chosen the selected value ( “prepared”, “not prepared”)
- Contains specific text: migrated declarations from the ETSI legacy IPR database may have free-text content on the licensing conditions (only applies to legacy data).
5.1.3 Panel “Search declaration” - result table
In the second part, a table displays the found declarations fitting to the search criteria. Each table column can be sorted in clicking in the column header, and further filtered by providing filter values in the column headers’ text boxes.
On each found declaration, the user can open the IPR declaration in view mode.
Advice: The user may choose “open in new tab/window” (right click of the mouse) when clicking on the access links of the found declarations. By doing so, the search result screen is preserved, and it is possible to open several declarations at the same time for comparison.
Either coming from the declaration search (see Search for IPR declarations) or from the dynamic reporting (see Dynamic Reporting), the user can display in “view” mode the contents of one particular IPR declaration. The present fields on this screen correspond to the ETSI IPR declaration forms of the respective IPR declaration type (GD or IS&LD). The user can access the declaration’s modification history (see Display modification history of an IPR declaration)
5.2.1 Declaration reference
This field is a unique identifer for each IPR declaration in the database. This number is assigned automatically by the system when initialising a new declaration (first “save” action).
It is codified as <declaration type>-<year><month>-<running number>.
5.2.2 Scanned electronic documents
The ETSI IPR online database application allows to display the scanned version of each IPR declaration in PDF. From a reflected IPR declaration, the user may at least access the scanned electronic document of the signed paper form.
5.2.3 Display of formerly un-normalised data
If the displayed declaration contains a formerly un-normalised data element, which has been mapped to a master data instance in the meantime, the system displays the value of the master data, and a tooltip icon allows to display the original un-normalised value when the mouse is pointing over the icon.
5.2.4 Particularities of migrated declarations
It should be noted that migrated IPR declarations from the legacy ETSI IPR database do not have values for the signing person, even though a signing person is present on the paper declaration. In addition, the legacy declarations’ licensing undertaking text was manually reflected in a text field. Migrated declarations consolidate these texts in the specific “Notes” section, which is visible only on migrated declarations.
From either the declaration search (see Search for IPR declarations) or from the dynamic reporting sections (see Dynamic Reporting), the user can display in “view” mode the contents of one particular IPR declaration. The present fields on this screen correspond to the ETSI IPR declaration forms of the respective IPR declaration type (GD or IS&LD). The user can access the declaration’s modification history (see Display modification history of an IPR declaration)
5.3.1 Two parts of an IS&LD
The first tab represents the first page of an IS&LD (in line with the first page of the mandatory declaration form as set out in the ETSI IPR Policy), which defines the declaring company, the contacts, the licensing conditions and the signature part.
The second tab displays the contents of the IPR Information Statement Annex table in line with the Annex specified in the mandatory declaration forms as set out in the ETSI IPR Policy. Each line of the IS&LD Annex table is represented by one “IPR disclosure” block.
First tab:
The first tab displays the
Declaration reference
This field is a unique identifer for each IPR declaration in the database. This number is assigned automatically by the system when initialising a new IPR declaration (first “save” action).
It is codified as <declaration type>-<year><month>-<running number>.
Scanned electronic documents
The ETSI IPR online database application allows to display the scanned version in PDF of each IPR declaration. The user can access the scanned electronic document of the signed paper form.
5.3.3 Second tab: IPR Information statement Annex table
IPR disclosure
In the second tab, each line of the IS Annex table is represented as one “IPR disclosure” block, in line with the Annex specified in the mandatory declaration forms as set out in the ETSI IPR Policy.
If more than 5 IPR Disclosure blocks are present, the application provides a paging mechanism to navigate through the list of disclosures. Further, the user can choose to expand or collapse all IPR disclosure blocks of the current page.
Patent family
In the IS Annex table, the declared basis patent is displayed in the first line of the patent family table, in bold black font.
If the basis patent is a published patent that can be found in the external database of EPO “espacenet”, the system will automatically construct the patent family based on the basis patent’s priority numbers and in line with the definition of a patent family as set out in Clause 15.13 ETSI IPR Policy. All automatically imported patents are displayed in grey.
Other patents of the patent family may have been explicitly disclosed on the declaration by the declaring company. These patents are displayed in black font colour.
If a declared basis patent is un-normalised or not available in the external database of EPO “espacenet”, other patents of the same patent family will not be displayed as the system will be unable to determine a patent family, due to the lack of priority numbers.
IPR - standard relationship already declared elsewhere
It may happen that a same relationship between a declared IPR (patent family) and a standard (work item or 3GPP specification, with or without a version number) has been declared more than once, on the same IPR declaration document or on different IPR declaration documents.
The ETSI IPR online database is able to detect such multi occurrences of a same relationship between a declared IPR and a standard. The column “Link to declaration(s) showing patent(s) of same family declared to same standard(s)” in the IPR disclosure’s standards table indicates such a multiple occurrence and provides a hyperlink to navigate directly to the concerned IPR disclosure.
Please note that this information is determined by the system based on the information containedinexisting declarations made by a declaring company.
Non-essentiality updates by the declarer
A declaring company may have informed ETSI that one national patent or a patent family as a whole, which he had declared as being essential to standard or project, is not considered as essential anymore to such standard or project. Such a modification request is reflected in the ETSI IPR database and is made visible in specific columns of the IPR disclosure block:
If the “non-essentiality” update made by the declaring company concerns an entire patent family, the “non-essentiality” information appears in the column “Update” of the ETSI projects table or the standards table.
In cases where individual national patents are requested by the declaring company to be updated as “non-essential” to a standard or an ETSI project, this information is reflected in the column “Updated as non-essential by declarant for” of the patent family table.
The system keeps track of modifications made to this IPR declaration in the history window. Such modifications must always be requested by the declarant to the ETSI Secretariat, who then reflects the modifications on the IPR declaration (i.e. updates as described in Article 3.2.2 ETSI Guide on IPRs).
The screens of modification history of IPR declarations display in a tabular way the present values at a certain moment in time. The first column lists the various fields of the declaration. Each following column represents the different field values. All values in a particular modification which have been added, modified or removed, are displayed in red bold font.
Each modification performed by ETSI on behalf of the declarer will be justified by a text, accompanied by issue date of the modification request document.
Coming from the declaration history display (see Display modification history of an IPR Declaration) or the patent detail display (see Display detail of single data instance), the user can access a patent’s modification history. In a similar way to the declaration’s modification history, the system displays the changed values on the patent instance, which could either stem from the automatic patent update batch, or from manual updates on patent applicants/holders.
The following chapter describes in further detail the reporting features of the ETSI IPR database. All reporting features rely on the public content of the IPR database, which is updated once per day.
The Dynamic Reporting is a very flexible feature enabling the user to analyse the relationships between elements contained in the publicly reflected IPR declarations. It is a means of obtaining statistical overviews and access specific details of the information contained in the concerned IPR declarations or IPR disclosure blocks. In contrast to the declaration search feature, the Dynamic reporting does not focus on finding particular IPR declaration documents but rather on providing access to information on the relationship between technologies and standards.
First, the user constructs the reporting query dynamically, i.e:
- selecting which criteria are queried, and in which order
- choosing filter values and query options to be applied when querying the reporting database
The query result is then presented following a top-down analysis approach:
- first, only the number of found elements are displayed for each queried criterion
- the user can then drill down into the query result in expanding punctually the count indicators in the table columns, starting from the left most column, and moving towards the right ones. Thus, the direction of the drill-down analysis is determined by the order of the queried criteria defined during query construction
The query result can be exported to CSV format.
6.1.1 Constructing the reporting query
The user can choose which content element/criteria shall be queried from the reporting database: ETSI projects, standards (ETSI work items/standards or 3GPP specifications), declaring companies, patent offices (countries or international organisations), patent applicants/holders, patent families and patents.
The patent family criterion restricts the query result to elements which are related to normalised basis patents (imported from EPO espacenet), because only normalised patents have priority numbers which are required for patent family construction.
The user must select at least one criterion to be able to perform the query.
Order of selected criteria
The order in which these criteria are selected is determining the intent of the analysis query, because the analysis drill-down on the query result happens in the same order, from the first selected criterion to the last selected one.
The interpretation of the query result table depends on the order. Hereafter are a series of examples to illustrate the interpretation differences by changing the order of the same selected criteria:
- selecting 1=”standard”, 2=”declaring companies”, 3=”patent family” represents the question “how many standards have been declared in reflected IPR declarations, by how many companies and how many patent families are involved?”
- selecting 1=”declaring companies”, 2=”standards”, 3=”patent family” represents the question “how many declaring companies have at least one reflected IPR declaration, how many standards are declared by these companies, and how many patent families have been declared in relation to these standards?”
- selecting 1=”patent families”, 2=”standards”, 3=”declaring company” represents the question “how many patent families have been declared in reflected IPR declarations, how many standards are concerned by these patent families, and how many companies have them declared?”
Filter values and query options
Additionally to selecting the query criteria, the Dynamic Reporting allows to narrow down the query result upfront in choosing filter values.
The user can select instances of: ETSI projects, standards, keywords related to work items, declaring companies, patent offices, and patents. All filter criteria are combined with a logical AND conjunction. Between different instances of the same filter criteria, the logical “OR” is applied.
The button 
next to the “Patent family” filter
of the Dynamic Reporting highlights that the patent family construction
is based only on normalised numbers. The application displays the following
statement: “The patent family construction is based only on patents that
have been normalised with data from EspaceNet.
Example: the user chooses declaring companies Comp1 and Comp2, and ETSI Project Proj1. The query result will show only information related to declarations of Comp1 or Comp2, and which refer to ETSI project Proj1.
A chosen filter value is taken into account by the query, even if the respective criterion is not selected to be part of the query result.
Apart from choosing instances to be filtered to, the user can influence the query result with further query options:
- “Published standards only”: elements which are declared to unpublished standards are not considered in the query result.
- “Standards without specific version no.”: the query groups together all elements which have been declared to the same standard number, regardless of which specific version has been declared.
- “Essentiality state as declared by declarer”: the query considers only elements related to the selected essentiality states. At least one of both states must be selected.
The Dynamic Reporting query result is displayed as a result table. Each selected query criterion is represented by a separate column, in the order as defined by the user.
The last two columns “Declarations” and “IPR Disclosures” in the result table are available, to indicate which IPR declarations and IPR disclosure blocks are concerned by the elements cited in the left columns of the respective result table line.
Top-level count indicators
The query result is displayed following a top-down approach, starting with a single result line containing only the count indicators for the selected query criteria.
Drill-down
The user can drill down by expanding the count indicators, starting with the left-most column. The contained elements are then represented in separate sub-lines. If there are more than 9 elements, then the system proposes a drop-down list from which the user needs to choose one element. The dropdown list gets populated by slices of 20 elements. Each slice can be added by clicking on the “‚” arrow at the end of the dropdown list, until the message “end of list” appears. To narrow down the proposed elements in the drop-down list, the user can type search characters, which the proposed elements’ labels shall contain.
Access detail pages
After having expanded, the displayed element’s label is a hyperlink, which allows the user to access the display detail page of this particular instance (see Display detail on single data instance). The same applies for the IPR declaration references and the IPR disclosure blocks, which are displayed as hyperlinks, allowing the user to navigate directly on the concerned declaration or the IPR disclosure block (see Display GD Declaration and Display IS&LD declaration).
Advice: The user may choose “open in new tab/window” (right click of the mouse) when clicking on the access links of the found elements. By doing so, the query result screen is preserved, and it is possible to open several declarations at the same time for comparison.
6.1.3 Exporting the query result to CSV
The query result can be exported to a CSV file. The exported result does not only contain the result lines that the user has explicitly expanded in the screen’s result table. It contains the entire query result set, with all the lines just as if everything was expanded.
Export section on query result screen
The section “Export query result to CSV” provides the means for exporting the query result into CSV representation. The user can choose to either
- open the CSV directly via the browser and the application associated to the .csv format (e.g. Excel)
- export to CSV as a background task, and receiving the generated CSV file via email
The first option is feasible only for relatively small result sets, with up to 20,000 result lines. If the result set is bigger, then the user shall either provide further filter values to narrow down the result, select fewer criteria, or use the export mode in background processing by providing a valid email address to which the exported CSV file shall be sent.
Please note that the current configuration of the application creates all CSV files with the semicolon (;) separator character. This influences the way how a CSV file is automatically displayed in Microsoft Excel.
When opening a CSV file in Excel, the content will automatically be interpreted and displayed in tabular format, if the local PC settings define also the semicolon as list separator character (Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Regional and Languages Options -> tab “Regional Options” -> “customize” button -> “numbers” tab -> "list separator").
If this is not the case, it is still possible to change the display option in Excel: open the file and select the entire first column A by clicking into the Excel column header, in “data” menu-tab click on “text-to-column” icon, in the wizard select 1st radiobutton choice “delimited” and press “next” button, check “semicolon” as delimiter, leave all other values in their default setting and press directly “terminate” button.
The system provides a series of screens, displaying the detail of one particular data instance: company, ETSI project, ETSI work item, 3GPP specification, patent family and patent.
The user generally accesses these screens via the hyperlink labels of data instances displayed in the Dynamic Reporting result table. Further, the screens are interlinked between themselves, i.e. many data instance labels displayed on a detail screen are hyperlinks, allowing to navigate to the next display detail screen.
The company wizard is intended to allow users to search and select from existing companies. The available companies are the official company master data instances imported from the ETSI DS application (company repository for ETSI), and all unmapped un-normalised companies in the database system.
Once a formerly unmapped company is mapped to an official master data company, the un-normalised value becomes an alias to the master-data value. The master-data company can be found by searching the un-normalised company name.
The user can search companies by name, in providing a part of the company name. The user may include the “%” character as a wildcard option representing any number of characters. This searched name part is then compared with the available companies' short name and legal name. Example: a search for “nokia” could find “Nokia Corporation” and “Nokia Siemens Networks”. And searching for “fra%tel” could bring all subsidiaries of “France Telecom”.
The ETSI project wizard is intended to allow users to browse the tree structure of existing ETSI projects and select one instance. The available ETSI projects are the official ETSI project master data instances imported from the ETSI WPM application (project and standard repository for ETSI), and all unmapped un-normalised ETSI projects in the database system.
Once a formerly unmapped ETSI project is mapped to an official master-data project, the un-normalised value becomes an alias to the master-data value. The master-data project can be found by filtering the projects tree by the un-normalised project acronym.
The user can filter the displayed project tree in providing a filter value string. After applying the filter, only those ETSI projects are shown in the tree which contain the filter value string in either the project acronym or the project name, and those parent projects which are necessary to display eligible filtered child projects.
The standard wizard is intended to allow users to search and select from existing standards (work items or 3GPP specifications; first tab). The available standard instances are the official work item and 3GPP specification master data instances imported from the ETSI WPM application (project and standard repository for ETSI) and from the 3GPP specifications database, and the unmapped un-normalised work items or 3GPP specifications in the system.
Once a formerly unmapped instance (work item or 3GPP specification) is mapped to an official master-data instance, the un-normalised value becomes an alias to the master-data value. The master-data instance can be found by searching by the un-normalised standard number.
The user can search standards by their number, title, version number, the related ETSI projects and the related technical body. All search criteria with provided values are combined with a logical “AND” conjunction.
- number: the user can provide a number value, which shall be contained in a work item reference (ex: “RTS/TSGR-0125211”) or on a work item's ETSI deliverable number (ex: “TS 125 200”) or on a 3GPP specification number (ex: “TS 25.200”). Before searching, the system automatically removes all special characters and whitespaces, so that it does not make any difference if the user searches for “TS25 200” or “TS-25200”. The user can provide a part of a standard number, for example searching for “25.200” will find both, the work item “TS 125 200” and the 3GPP specification “TS 25.200”.
- title: the user can provide a part of the standard title. The user may include the “%” character as a wildcard option representing any number of characters. A search for “NGN%IPTV” will find standards whose title contains first the word “NGN” and later “IPTV”.
- version: must be provided in format #.#.#
- project: the user can choose one ETSI project to which the found standards shall be related to
- technical body: the user can choose one technical body by which the found standards are managed
The system performs the search on both work items and 3GPP specifications, and displays the found elements for each category in a separate table for the user to select from.
The patent wizard is intended to allow users to search and select from patents, which are locally recorded in the ETSI IPR online database.
This local search can be done on different search criteria: patent numbers (with or without corresponding date), patent title, patent applicant/holder, and the patent office of registration (country or organisation). The user must at least provide a number value or a title keyword.
All search criteria with provided value are combined with a logical “AND” conjunction.
Searching by numbers
If the user searches by a number (application or publication number), and the user provides the country information (either by selecting a country or organisation, or by prefixing the number value with the country code), then the system tries to normalise the provided number with the help of the EPO web service.
If searching for original numbers, it is recommended to also provide the corresponding date (application or publication date). Without the date, the EPO EspaceNet service may not be able to normalise the provided number into EspaceNet format and to find the intended patent. This is necessary for original numbers from several patent offices, for example the USPTO.
In case of an application number of a national application at the USPTO (e.g. 10/123,456) which stems from an international application the system may require due to EspaceNet restrictions as application date the 35 U.S.C. § 371 (c) (1), (2), (4) date, at which the request for examination of the national application was filed with the USPTO instead of the application date of the international application, in order to be able to normalise the provided US application number into EspaceNet and to find the intended US patent application.
The system searches automatically for three variations of the provided searched number :
- the exact number as typed in by the user
- the provided number, but removing all special characters (like whitespaces, commas, dots, ...)
- the normalised EPO EspaceNet number of the searched number, if the system was able to normalise it
The system then displays all locally available patents satisfying the provided search criteria values.