 | |
Type of site | Patent Search Service |
|---|---|
| Available in | Multilingual |
| Owner | Cambia |
| URL | The Lens |
| Commercial | Not for profit |
| Registration | No |
| Launched | 2000 |
| Current status | Active |
The Lens (formerlyPatent Lens) is a free, searcheable online database of patents and scholarly literature, provided byCambia, a non-profit organization based inAustralia.
The Lens functions as an aggregation platform, drawing bibliometric data from various sources such asCrossref,PubMed,Microsoft Academic, andOpenAlex, and integrating them using advanced analytics to provide enriched, contextual information.
The service was initially launched in 2000 as a database of U.S. patents focused on agricultural technologies. Between 2004 and 2007, under the leadership of Dr. Marie Connett and Dr.Richard Jefferson atCambia, the platform expanded to include patents across all scientific disciplines, engineering fields, and other areas of innovation. This expansion also introduced access to patent applications and granted patents from multiple jurisdictions through a website then known as the Patent Lens. During this period, new tools were developed to enable searching of biological sequences within patent literature, alongside the introduction of dynamically updating patent landscapes tailored to specific fields. These enhancements supported the broader goal of democratizing access to intellectual property data. Over time, the database has enabled free and open access to patent literature and facilitated the production of scholarly materials such as conference papers, reports, and books. The platform’s analytical tools have been continuously refined to uncover trends in patent ownership, citation patterns, and technology landscapes. In 2013, the platform was rebranded asThe Lens. It has received funding support from several organizations over the years, including theRockefeller Foundation (2000–2004), a donation via theInternational Rice Research Institute (2005–2006), theBill & Melinda Gates Foundation (2011), theGordon and Betty Moore Foundation (2012), theWellcome Trust (2018), and theLemelson Foundation.[1][2][3][4] Today, The Lens hosts over 225 million scholarly works, more than 127 million global patent records, and upwards of 370 million biological sequences.[5]
ThePatent Lens Sequence Project, launched in June 2006, is the only publicly accessible resource that allows users to explore more than 80 millionDNA andprotein sequences disclosed in patents.[6]
Patent tutorials[7] are available on the site coveringpatent claims,freedom to operate,patent inventorship, andcontinuing patent applications.Plant breeders' rights (PBR), also known as plant variety rights (PVR), are also addressed. This has the intention to "forge a learning resource that participants in innovation systems at all levels... can use to learn of critical and timely issues relevant to improving the public good... by engaging with the patent system".[8]
The patent search interface is available inChinese,English andFrench, with the full text ofEuropean Patent Office (EPO) patents being searchable in English, French andGerman. PCT applications are searchable in Chinese, English, French, German,Japanese,Korean,Russian andSpanish.[citation needed]
Only a limited number of studies looked into the comparison of the number of publications indexed in theacademic research databases. A 2025 study from a medical university inChina limited toscleral contact lenses concluded, thatScopus had 3.6% more references thanWeb of Science.[9]In a 2024 publication from theUniversity of Jordan the publications from their university referenced in several databases were compared. The authors found, that the degree of coverage decreases in the order:Scopus~Web of Science>The Lens.[10]
A 2024 study from Spain concluded that zero-costThe Lens, which combined the data from Crossref, PubMed, Core and OpenAlex, had the largest coverage, with more than 247 million bibliographic records.[11] No-costOpen Alex had the second largest coverage of about 240 million publications in total. FreeSciLit came in third with 149 million of publications agglomerated from Crossref, PubMed, preprint repositories and publishers.Web of Science Core Collection came in fourth with 85 mln. records.Scopus was the fifth with 78 million records. While no database was comprehensive, the coverage overlap between any two databases was substantial.
Francis Gurry, director general of theWorld Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in March 2009, stated that the landscaping activities of the Patent Lens: in "view of the shared objective of making patent information systems more comprehensive and accessible, and turning raw patent data into useful information resources so as to strengthen the empirical basis of international policy processes".[12]
Nature Biotechnology called the Patent Lens "a giant leap in the right direction" for providing researchers,technology transfer offices and company executives a facile means of establishing the novelty of their offerings and the nature of their competitors' inventions.[13]
