.. _datasource-epo-ops:

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About EPO Open Patent Services
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PatZilla uses the Open Patent Services (OPS) provided by the European Patent Office (EPO)
to display bibliographic data of patent documents. See also https://ops.epo.org/ for more
information about this service.

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   :local:
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.. _epo-ops-intro:

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Introduction
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Open Patent Services (OPS) is a web service which provides access to the EPO's raw
data via a standardised XML interface. It does this using RESTful architecture.

OPS data is extracted from the EPO's bibliographic, worldwide legal status, full-text and image
databases. It is therefore from the same sources as the Espacenet and European Patent Register data.
The number of documents available `recently passed the 100-million mark <https://forums.epo.org/100-million-documents-in-espacenet-7212>`_.

With OPS you can:

- add EPO data to your own software applications or in-house databases
- develop tailor-made clients
- download large volumes of data

You might also want to have a look at some information provided by the EPO:

- `FAQ on Open Patent Services (OPS) <https://www.epo.org/searching-for-patents/technical/espacenet/ops/faq.html>`_
- `OPS version 3.2 documentation – version 1.3.1 <http://documents.epo.org/projects/babylon/eponet.nsf/0/F3ECDCC915C9BCD8C1258060003AA712/$File/ops_v3_2_documentation_version_1_3_1_en.pdf>`_
- `Open Patent Services (OPS) » Documentation and downloads <https://www.epo.org/searching-for-patents/technical/espacenet/ops.html#tab-3>`_


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Setup
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Please follow up at :ref:`epo-ops-setup` about how to use EPO OPS with PatZilla.