What is Open Patent Services (OPS)?

Open Patent Services - or OPS as it is also known - is a web service which provides access to the EPO's raw data via a standardised XML interface. The data is extracted from the EPO's bibliographic, the Worldwide Legal Status Database, full-text and image databases and is therefore from the same sources as the data in Espacenet and the European Patent Register. However, while Espacenet and the European Patent Register only require an internet browser, OPS requires programming work to access the service.