The Thimphu TechPark in collaboration with Department of Intellectual Property, Ministry of Economic Affairs has organized a day long workshop on patent searching at the Thimphu TechPark Limited on July 25, 2018.
The objective of the workshop was to introduce the patent system and the global free patent databases, demonstrate basic search techniques to mine inventions from these databases. Some of the freely accessible major international patent databases are World Intellectual Property Organization’s Patentscope and European Patent Office’s Espacenet. Other big patent offices such as United States Patent and Trademark Office, Japan Patent Office, etc. also make available their national patent databases for public access. Instantly accessible Google Patent search system is also a useful site. Besides, the workshop conducted search exercises for inventions in all the mentioned databases.
The participants for the workshop comprised of aspiring entrepreneurs, startups, business person, civil servant, high school and college students and other interested individuals.