The PatCom Mission

The Patent Committee, “PatCom”, is an organisation of commercial intellectual property (IP) information providers. All PatCom members individually strive to obtain accurate, up to date and high quality global IP information, in bulk, which they can distribute and licence to their own customers for commercial usage. “High quality” incorporates timeliness, completeness, consistent formatting and accuracy of data.

PatCom exists to further these aims collectively, by maintaining an open dialogue with leading national and regional Intellectual Property Offices (IP Offices), which make data available commercially. Discussions cover issues such as data quality, licensing, availability, currency, historic data and development of intellectual property information.   Through these discussions, PatCom is able to learn at an early stage of forthcoming legal and procedural changes which will have implications for services they provide to their customers, and plan accordingly.
In addition, PatCom seeks to widen the availability of patent data, by establishing relationships with further IP Offices and to encourage the provision of data on a commercial basis.

PatCom members are competitors. Nonetheless, sharing the common goal of obtaining highest quality, original patent and other intellectual property information at a fair price from the IP Offices, they find it beneficial to work together on issues which lie at the heart of the IP information profession.

PatCom’s discussions with the Offices help keep information interests high on the Office agenda and enable PatCom member organisations to secure, expand and grow provision of IP information for the benefit of all.

June 2015