Internet patent databases: a comparative study.

Abstract

The patent is an essential document in the evaluation of technological investigation that has been used as approximation of innovation. The patent databases on the Internet are one principal source of information for this kind of analysis. However they are many databases and they are very different; reason why the election of one of them in the accomplishment of bibliometric analysis is a crucial aspect. In this sense, this survey studies some of main free –Esp@cenet, PatentScope, national databases and commercial –Derwent Innovatios Index, Chemical Abstracts Plus, Thomson Delphion Intellectual Property Network– patent databases. The results show that commercial systems provide value-added –data revision, analysis tools, etc.–; althought the free ones are going to become trustworthy resources thanks to the improvements and options that are introduced in them.