The Lens

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 at Cambia, 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…

The Patent Lens Sequence Project, launched in June 2006, is the only publicly accessible resource that allows users to explore more than 80 million DNA and protein sequences disclosed in patents. Patent tutorials are available on the site covering patent claims, freedom to operate, patent inventorship, and continuing 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". The patent search interface is…