The complete scanned image of a patent can be displayed. Images are available for patents issued from 1974 to present. No helper application is needed. There is a summary of missing or incomplete patent data and a list of what's new. The patent references are hyperlinked, allowing users to locate and view prior art by navigating through all the cited patents.
Users can also access later patents that reference the existing document.
This provides users information about renewal status of patents. Espace provides free access to patent information from the U.S., Europe and Japan. Access is also provided to a comprehensive collection of patents published worldwide since 1920. For documents published since 1970, each patent family in the collection has a representative document with a searchable English-language title and abstract. Users can display and print out the bibliographic data including the abstract.