Where to search prior art

You can contact some of the database companies to order their search services although such services are normally extremely expensive. For example, if you want to search the prior art (patent) in English, you can have a search performed by the search bureau of the European Patent Office (referred to as a "Hague search" because the search bureau is located in The Hague in The Netherlands). Or you can order the search to be conducted by Derwent Search Service, or other search services provided by database companies. If your request is very specific and can be easily communicated to the searcher working for you, and if you are lucky enough to have a searcher who happens to have a profound knowledge in your area, the quality of the search can be quite good.

No matter if it is a search service provided by database companies or by other search companies, you will not always to have such luck to get a searcher who is familiar with your area and speaks the appropriate language.

If you need to conduct a multi-language search (English, Japanese, Chinese, Korean), not many database companies or search companies have the capability to do the search for you.

We specialized in Japanese prior art search including Japanese patent search and Japanese non-patent literature search. We also perform prior art search in Chinese and Korean.