Background

This project was initiated during the WIPO Symposium for IP Authorities in September 2009. The starting point for the project is a request from the IP Offices of Australia, Canada and UK (The Vancouver Group offices) for WIPO to provide a platform for the sharing of search and examination documents in order to facilitate work sharing between the offices. Note that the Vancouver Group offices intend to operate a work sharing programme, not a mutual recognition system.A new platform is required because no common platform exists that would meet the requirements.  In particular, patent search facilities would be required, supported by a database of patent bibliographic data. The system must also be secure and, eventually, support features such as collaborative examination, workflow, etc.The platform will not be unique to the Vancouver Group. It will be extensible to other work-sharing programs, in particular:

• New offices that may join the Vancouver Group
• New groups of offices with similar work-sharing agreements between them (Latin American offices, ASEAN, etc)
• Collaborative examination in the PCT international and national phases (see the PCT Roadmap)
• The revised WIPO ICE service (International Cooperation for Examination) under which offices with capacity and experience provide assistance to smaller and less-experienced offices. The project and system will be known as WIPO CASE (Centralized Access to Search and Examination).WIPO-CASE (version 1.0) was first released into production in March 2010 has very basic functions:
• Bulk upload of documents and bibliographic data
• Access to search and examination reports through simple search by application or publication number, optionally including additional types of documents uploaded by participating Offices

Project Status

The next release CASE 2.0 is planned for 2012 with additional functionality:

• Patent family search and dashboard view of application status
• Direct access to documents held in the digital libraries of participating Offices
• Office group
• Notificaion service
• Office Data Upload portal for small Offices without the need to automate such process

All project related documentation are available here.

Data coverage

The following statistics are collected as of September 22, 2011. Approximately, the data cover applications filed since 2000.