Report:Espacenet/Security
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Security
Espacenet does not require any password to use, and does not provide any information about how to search securely via its site. The only security information provided on the site is instructions about how to enable cookies, which will allow users to save patents to the "My patents" list and temporarily save search queries. Anyone accessing the site from that user’s IP address would be able to see the saved documents , and they also would be able to to see the user's “Query history” list with the ten most recently used search queries.
EPO publications refer to the implicit understanding of security users may have when searching on Espacenet. A 2007 editorial by the EPO’s Principal Director for Patent Information, Wolfgang Pilch , references the implicit understanding of confidentiality when using Espacenet, as opposed to the uncertainty introduced by using Google Patent Search, offered by a company with a history of tracing search patterns.[1]
In addition, Pilch stated in an October 2007 interview that the EPO staffers “do NOT record, monitor, or trace the queries of users,” and that aside from one study conducted in 2003, the EPO does not maintain any data on the users of Espacenet.[2]
Sources
- ↑ Pilch, Wolfgang. “886 000”. Patent Information News, volume 1, 2007. Accessed at http://documents.epo.org/projects/babylon/eponet.nsf/0/FDFF591CF37EBF48C12572A5004BD30C/$File/Patentinfo_news_0701_en.pdf on October 22, 2007.
- ↑ Poydner, Richard. "Interview with the EPO’s Wolfgang Pilch." Blog post. October 24, 2007. Open and Shut? http://poynder.blogspot.com/search?q=pilch. Accessed on October 25, 2007.
