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1.1.10. Non-Patent Literature

Date Published

On reaching an agreed search strategy (see MPP 1.1.8.1 Search Strategy Introduction) in cooperation with the other members of the search strategy team, the search examiner should conduct any non-patent literature search deemed necessary at the same time as the patent search is conducted. This is in line with expectations on search times.

The non-patent literature (agreed upon by the ISA's and listed in the PCT Minimun Documentation) comprises periodicals specified in the list of periodicals established under PCT Rule 34.1(b)(iii) plus "Chemical Abstracts", where the publication date does not precede the date of the search by more than 5 years.

The NPL databases Pubchem, Medline, XPTK (database of recent traditional knowledge) and INSPEC provided by EPOQUE have documents relating to Chemistry, Biotechnology, traditional knowledge, Physics, Electronics  etc.  Consideration of the results of the search in these databases may require obtaining the full journal article. The journal article is obtained by an email request to the IP Australia Library.

TKDL (Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, India) database contains information on about 223000 medicinal formulations, some of them dating back many centuries. It can be accessed via URL: http://www.tkdl.res.in/. Please note that TKDL is not available through EPOQUE

Chemistry searches are conducted using the STN collection of non-patent literature databases. The non-patent literature databases include Chemical Abstracts (CA, CAPLUS), Medline, Biosis and FSTA. Results from the search are retrieved in the form of abstracts from STN. The full journal article on which the abstract is based, is obtained by an email request to the IP Australia Library.  Occasionally the Chemical Abstract result will refer to the printed form of the Chemical Abstract abstract and this can also be ordered by an email request to the IP Australia Library.

Examiners should refer to authorised users of STN for assistance in constructing search strategies.

Biotechnology searches are conducted using the GenomeQuest collection of patent and non-patent literature databases.  The non-patent literature databases include EMBL and NCBI. Consideration of the results of the search may require obtaining the full journal article. The journal article is obtained by an email request to the IP Australia Library.

Examiners should refer to authorised users of GenomeQuest for assistance in constructing search strategies.

See also 4.1.4.3.3 for further guidance on NPL searching

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