PatSnap, the world’s leading provider of research and development (R&D) analytics, has today announced that it has joined the Access to Specialized Patent Information (ASPI) program, to support developing companies in their pursuit of innovation by providing access to PatSnap’s R&D analytics platform.

The ASPI program was launched in 2010 by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), to support developing countries in more fully exploiting their innovative potential by leveraging the valuable information contained in patent documents, and to develop new solutions to technical problems faced at local and international levels.

The program is intended to contribute to achieving the objectives of the WIPO Development Agenda, in particular Recommendation 8 (“[to facilitate] the national offices of developing countries, especially LDCs, as well as their regional and sub-regional intellectual property organisations to access specialised databases”). Through joining the ASPI program, eligible patent offices and academic and research institutions in developing countries can receive free or low-cost access to PatSnap’s R&D analytics platform.

Jeffrey Tiong, CEO of PatSnap said that “the WIPO’s ASPI program plays a crucial role in providing equal opportunities for innovation across the globe, enabling some of the world’s brightest minds to research and pursue their new ideas regardless of their background or socio-economic status.”

He continued: “Open innovation is a fundamental part of the PatSnap philosophy. In 2017, we launched PatSnap Academy to open the floodgates of innovation, by providing those with no knowledge of Intellectual Property with a free platform to learn how to protect and pursue their ideas. The ASPI program ties in perfectly with our ethos, and we hope that through this partnership we can provide the necessary insight that can help to bring a largely untapped ocean of new ideas and inventions to the global marketplace.”

Yo Takagi, Assistant Director General of WIPO said “The World Intellectual Property Organization is pleased to welcome PatSnap as a partner in the Access to Specialized Patent Information (ASPI) program in making available sophisticated patent search and analysis tools for free or at low cost to institutions in least developed and other developing countries. PatSnap joins seven other leading patent database service providers in providing researchers, innovators, and entrepreneurs in developing countries with critical insights into emerging trends in a wide range of technologies and industries.  This contributes to ASPI’s ultimate goal of encouraging innovation and economic development.”

PatSnap, which has offices in Singapore, China, the UK and USA, has brought together the world’s largest R&D dataset. By adding licensing and litigation data, economic data, non-patent literature, patent valuation, and image and chemical formula search, PatSnap provides the world’s most innovative organisations with a new, intuitive source of information during research.