PATENTSCOPE

Free research services provided by the World Intellectual Property (WIPO). Allow access to millions of patent documents including international patent applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), and regional and national patent collections from 25 participating countries. Images of patent documents are in PDF. Also provides translation of titles and abstracts of inventions from Chines into English and French and vice versa. (Updated weekly).

Google Patents

Accessed under USPTO includes over 87 million patent publications from 17 patent offices around the world, as well as many more technical documents and books indexed in Google Scholar and Google Boooks.

USPTO

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is the federal agency for granting u.S. patents and registering trademarks. In doinf this, the USPTO fulfills the mandate of the Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, of the constitution that the legislative branch “promote the progress of science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Investors the exclusive Right to their respective writings and discoveries.” The USPTO registers trademarks based on the commerce clause of the constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3).

The Index of full-text documents are from the following patent offices:

• United States Europe
• Japan
• China
• South Korea
• WIPO
• Russia
• Germany
• The United Kingdom
• Canada
• France
• Spain
• Belgium
• Denmark
• Finland
• Luxembourg
• The Netherlands

ARIPO

The African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), formerly African Regional Industrial Property Organization, is an intergovernmental organization for cooperation among African states in patent and other intellectual property matters. ARIPO was established by the Lusaka Agreement of 1976. It has the capacity to hear applications for patents and registered trademarks in its member states who are parties to the Harare (patents), Banjul (marks) and Arusha (plant varieties) protocols. ARIPO also features as a protocol on the protection of traditional knowledge, the Swakomund Protocol, signed in 2010 by 9 member states of the organization. However, that has not come into force yet, as of July 2013.

ARDI

The Acccess to Research for Development and Innovation (ARDI) program is coordinated by WIPO together with its partners in the publishing industry with the aim of increasing the availability of scientific and technical information in developing countries.

By improving access to scholarly literature from diverse fields of science and technology, ARDI seeks to:

• Reinforce the capacity of developing countries to participate in global knoeledge economy; and
• Support researchers in developing countries in creating and developing new solutions to technical challenges faced on a local and global level.

Currently, over 100 publishers provide access to around 30000 journals, books, and reference works for 121 developing countries and territories through ARDI.

Access is by username and password provided by library staff on request.

OARE

Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE) is led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in partnership with major publishers. The programme enables developing countries to gain access to one of the world’s largest collections of environmental science research.

Launched in October 2006, OARE has a mission to improve the quality and effectiveness of environmental science research, education and training in low-income countries. In doing so, OARE seeks to support the efforts of low income countries to achieve the following four development objectives:

• Build the capacity of environmental professionals to manage fragile ecosystems, protect human health, and manage natural renewable resources more sustainably.
• Build the capacity of national experts to facilitate – through their knowledge and reputation – the development of more progressive, science-driven state policies, regulatory frameworks, and governance structures.
• Strengthen the intellectual foundation of universities so as to enable scientists to conduct scientific research on a par with peers in industrialized countries and establish their own publishing record; help faculty to better educate the next generation of leaders; and enable students to seek education in new and emerging scientific disciplines.
• Build the capacity of local media to gather and disseminate to the public new scientific knowledge of importance to the welfare of developing nations.

HINARI

Hinari Access to Research for Health Programme provides free or very low cost online access to the major journals in biomedical and related social sciences to local, not-for-profit institutions in developing countries.

Hinari was launched in January 2002, with some 1500 journals from 6 major publishers: Blackwell, Elsevier Science, the Harcourt Worldwide STM Group, Wolters Kluwer International Health & Science, Springer Verlag and John Wiley, following the principles in a Statement of Intent signed in July 2001. Since that time, the numbers of participating publishers and of journals and other full-text resources has grown continuously. 165 publisher partners and up to 185 publishers’ content are offering up to 65,000 information resources in Hinari and many others are joining the programme.

AGORA

The AGORA programme, set up by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) together with major publishers, enables developing countries to gain access to an outstanding digital library collection in the fields of food, agriculture, environmental science and related social sciences. AGORA provides a collection of up to 8,200 key journals and up to 22,000 books to more than 3,100 institutions in more than 115 countries. AGORA is designed to enhance the scholarship of the many thousands of students, faculty and researchers in agriculture and life sciences in the developing world. AGORA is one of the four programmes that make up Research4Life: AGORA, HINARI, OARE and ARDI.