How long does it take Thomson Derwent to receive patent documents from the various patent offices around the world?
There are many factors that impact the delay between the date of publication and the delivery to Thomson Derwent. For the major patent-issuing authorities, the bibliographic data is available on the day of publication and the full patent specifications (including the drawings) are delivered within a couple of days thereafter. For other patent offices, the most timely data is available only in the official gazette. The time to capture the information in electronic format from the Gazette adds to the delivery time. Finally, for countries like Korea, China, and Russia, the delay from publication is increased by the time needed to translate the information into the English language. All these factors–delivery media, language of publication, specific publication pattern of the national patent offices, courier service–can affect the front-end timeliness of the patent data.
