The Lens
[citation needed] The Patent Lens Sequence Project, commenced in June 2006, provides the only public facility to enable users to explore over 80 million DNA and protein sequences disclosed in patents.PCT applications are searchable in Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Spanish.[citation needed] The Lens was described in the Journal of the Medical Library Association as the “most comprehensive scholarly literature database, that exceeds in its width and depth two leading commercial databases (Web of Science and Scopus) combined”.[4] Francis Gurry, director general of the World 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".[9] 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.