PatZilla: Patent information research for humans

About

PatZilla is a modular patent information research platform and data integration toolkit. It features an efficient user interface and access to multiple data sources.

The system provides convenient access to the OPS service from EPO and other professional fulltext patent databases in its standalone version. You can also use its software components and interfaces for building arbitrary vendor solutions.

• Documentation: https://docs.ip-tools.org/patzilla/

• Source Code: https://github.com/ip-tools/patzilla

• PyPI: https://pypi.org/project/patzilla/

• Status:

  

Features

• Multiple data source APIs.
  • Use different patent search services with varying coverage.
  • Connect to multiple services for pdf-, image-, bibliographic data and fulltext acquisition.
• User interface. Based on contemporary web technologies and responsive design, it works on multiple devices. Use it on PCs, tablets, smartphone devices or as a multi-screen solution. The clear and well-arranged design and layout permits efficient screening of large numbers of patent documents.
• Dossier management. Manage different collections of patent documents and apply ratings and comments.
• REST API. Through the extensive REST API, all functionality is available to 3rd-party systems. Deep integration has no limits.
• Sharing. Well-designed collaboration features allow efficient sharing of information with your colleagues and partners, even across the boundaries of in-house systems.
• Multitenancy. The software can operate on behalf of different vendors. It's easy to apply custom branding.

Screenshot

A picture says a thousand words.

Demos

• The search demo will run the fixed query:

  txt=(SS7 or (telecommunication or communication or comunicación) or (mobile or Mobilfunknetz) or (network or (security or Sicherung))) and
  pa=(mobil or kommunikation) and
  cl=(H04W12/12 or H04L63/0281 or H04L63/0414)
  not pn=(CN or CA or JP)
  

  ... against EPO/OPS and display the results. You will be able to step through result pages and display fulltext- and family-information, but running custom queries will be disabled.

• The numberlist demo will display the patent documents DE102011075997A1, DE102011076020A1, DE102011076022A1 and DE102011076035A1. This is a showcase about how to integrate a link to a list of patent documents into own applications.

• The document view demo will display the patent document EP0666666A2 without any control elements. This is a showcase about how to embed the document view into own applications or how to directly link to single documents.

• The nasa-public-domain demo displays the latest NASA patents put under the public domain.

Data sources

PatZilla IP Navigator uses different API services for accessing patent information.

Primary data sources:

• EPO/OPS
• DPMA/DEPATISnet
• IFI Claims
• MTC depa.tech

Auxiliary data sources:

• USPTO/PATIMG
• CIPO

Getting started

Getting started with the software or deploying it yourself is quite easy if you are familiar with Python. We will only cover development here, see the install documentation page about how to install, configure and run an instance. The software should work on any other Linux or BSD distribution, but this is beyond the scope of the README.

It runs on Python 2.7, but is not ready for Python 3.6 yet. Contributions are welcome!

Project information

The source code of »PatZilla IP Navigator« is available under an open source license using the brand name »PatZilla«. For further details, please visit:

• PatZilla on GitHub
• PatZilla documentation
• PatZilla on the Python Package Index (PyPI)

History

The software got some applause from professional researchers for its unique user interface and rich feature set when it was released to the first audience in 2014. We hear from our users they are still having a great pleasure working with it on a daily basis.

After four years of development, the source code finally gets released under an open source license in 2017. We are looking forward to opening up the development process as well, every kind of participation and support is very much welcome.

Contributing

We are always happy to receive code contributions, ideas, suggestions and problem reports from the community. Spend some time taking a look around, locate a bug, design issue or spelling mistake and then send us a pull request or create an issue.

Thanks in advance for your efforts, we really appreciate any help or feedback.

License

This software is copyright © 2013-2020 The PatZilla authors. All rights reserved.

It is and will always be free and open source software.

Use of the source code included here is governed by the GNU Affero General Public License and the European Union Public License. Please also have a look at the notices about licenses of third-party components.

Support

For enterprises, dedicated commercial support is also available through Elmyra UG. Elmyra UG is the software development company that’s spearheading the ongoing development and as such will ensure continuity for the project.

If you’re using PatZilla in your company and you need support or custom development or support, feel free to get in touch with us. We are happy to receive respective inquiries at [email protected].

In this way, you are contributing to the ongoing maintenance and further development of PatZilla. As it still is a reasonably young project, it needs all support it can get.