UK TV Show & Patent Novice - GB + 'B' Patents

Hi,

I am a complete patent searching novice and looking for a bit of advice!

I work for a UK TV company called Objective Productions and we make a wide range of shows from The Cube on ITV to Derren Brown for Channel 4.

We have just had a new 8 part TV show commissioned by Sky called ‘The Mother Of Invention’, presented by two successful innovator-entrepreneurs who want to scour the UK in search of great undeveloped and undiscovered inventions and give them the platform they truly deserve.

We’re looking for great ideas that have been patented but haven’t got off the ground. We know around 15,000 patents are applied for each year and of that about 3,000 will be granted. Of these only a fraction will make it to market- so we are going to look for the ones that haven't made it, that are still great ideas, and help them succeed where they have previously failed.

My question is to find out if there is a method of searching only for these GB, 'patent granted'/'B' patents?

I have looked on Epacenet, which looks like this is not possible and I have also been in touch with Patbase, who said this was not possible with their service.

I have found this search is possible via the www.IPO.gov.uk website, however- the results are only displayed with only the patent numbers, meaning you need to click into each result to see what the patent is and who filed it. Obviously this is very time consuming!Is there a better system out there?

If anyone has any advice on searching for these documents it would be much appreciated.

The ideal kind of patent/invention we are looking for will be:

(1) Owned by UK-based individuals (ie, not companies).

(2) An invention that makes sense to a typical non-technical TV viewer... ie, it is not a large industrial application or process.

(3) Likely to be a consumer product, gadget, tool or implement, possibly used around the home.

Our production is committed to the protection of confidentiality. No material filmed will be broadcast – or non-public domain details of inventions disclosed – without the prior written permission of the people and products being filmed. We respect the privacy of individuals, and particularly the sensitivity of issues surrounding intellectual property. We will be happy to send out a standard non-disclosure agreement to protect non-publicly accessible material if deemed it appropriate.

Also, if you can think of any members, inventions or inventors which would be suitable for the show please pass on this e-mail and ask them to contact myself regarding their invention.

inventions@objectiveproductions.com

Regards and thank you for your expertise in advance,

Louis

Hi Louis,

If I am understanding your problem correctly, you are looking to be able to search patents by:

1) Country
2) Kind Code

One factor for #1 is that you're looking for UK based inventors, but these inventors may not necessarily have applied/been granted a GB patent. For this reason, you shouldn't limit yourself to searching only GB patents (although this will likely yield a higher chance of getting what you want).

To suss out what country the assignee is from, there are a few solutions. One is to use the "Patent Assignee Country" (or equivalent) search field in Orbit.com, PatSnap, Thomson Innovation or others.

Many search systems will allow you to address #2, searching by Kind Code (granted patents, in your case). These include PatBase (they might not have understood what you meant, you can search by Kind Code in their system), Google Patents (US only, though), TotalPatent, and I believe Orbit.com allows you to sort by grant or application--among several other systems.

Best,
Chris

Hi
What you are searching for is a valuable combination of fields that no-one seems to offer.
For PatBase the following string will get you closer. You'll need to change the year figures or maybe even add a month in the form YYYYMM to get a smaller set. It's not perfect because you're assuming that a UK company will file in the UK first, and a US company will file in the US first etc, and they don't always.

(((PR=(GB2005*)) and (EPR=2005)) and (KD=(GBB*)))

You might also like to try PatentScope which will give you the PCT applications of UK companies. These aren't granted though and you'd need to look at the national phase application tab for GB or EP application numbers of any subject matter you thought was interesting, and then if they did exist you'd have to check the status, or you could get equivalents from Espacenet, which would indicate B documents there.

http://www.wipo.int/patentscope/search/en/structuredSearch.jsf
The fields to use would be Priority Country = GB; Applicant Address Country = GB; and Priority Date = YYYY or YYYYMM
This is the advanced search string to use. PCN:GB AND AADC:GB AND PD:2005

You may also want to use IPC to cut down numbers, even broad classes would get you in a good area, so you wouldn't have to be an expert.

I don't know if you are aware but in Australia until recently we had a TV show called The New Inventors. You may want to look at http://www.abc.net.au/tv/newinventors/

If you need any more info I'm happy to help.
Cheers
Frazer