Guide to STN Patent Databases – Basic Version - Paton - TU Ilmenau

14 RDISCLOSURE
14.1 Typical queries
Patent databases on STN International
Searches for the state of the art in technical disclosure publications (world-wide, free-text only) to
complement searches in other international patent databases, e.g.:
What European inventions are there on Bar code labels?
Name searches (applicant only; often anonymous), e.g.:
What technical disclosure of International Business Machines Corporation has been published during the
past year?
Searches using formal data (e.g. numbers), e.g.:
What is in the text of the technical disclosure, RD 460128?
Full-text display of technical disclosure:
What is the text of RD 420006?
Using the full-text to find material for an opposition
14.2 Brief description
Producer: Kenneth Mason Publications Ltd, Westbourne, Hampshire, UK
Period covered: Since 1960
Size: Approx. 41,300 records (May 2012)
Updated: Monthly
Languages: 90 % English (plus French, German, Spanish, etc.)
14.3 Contents
Full text and drawings from Technical Disclosure of inventions
Defensive publications as an alternative to other types of intellectual property, such as patents or utility
models; source is the monthly journal Research Disclosure
Reasons for publication:
Low-cost alternative to prevent patenting by others
Complement to patents, as all patent offices use this source regularly
Title, text, drawing(s), publication information (code RD), application/priority information in PRAI field
Bibliographical details and full-text searchable, text and drawing(s) available for display as TIFF or PDF
Up to early 2001 RD documents were entered in Derwent World Patents Index, including the IPC (to
subclass, added by Derwent) and other Derwent indexing
International Patent Classification IPC1 8 (often only subclass level), exists in approx. 50 % of the
documents, IPC thesaurus, range search possible
European patent classification ECLA, standardized, approx. 30 % of the documents contain the ECLA in
addition to the IPC
References to non-patent literature
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