Unconstitutional supranational arrangements for patent law: leaving out the elected legislators and the people’s participatory rights

Substantive economic law in the context of patents creates industrial property rights and monopolies in almost all fields of technology, affecting considerably the economic and social well-being of the state and its people. The mass nationalisation of the international patents of the European Patent Office (EPO) has long raised serious questions about democratic control, in view of the reality that most of its patents are taken by large companies and corporations from a small number of states, mostly from outside the EU. The EU has recently expanded this system by creating a federal (unitary) patent framework consisting of the EPO and a new international court, the Unified Patent Court (UPC), that abolishes the already limited national control. But how can national control ever be totally abolished, especially in such an important social–economic context? And, can the EU exercise effective democratic control of the federal system that it has created? The observed constitutional asymmetries of a federal/unitary patent system that is created in the absence of a federation and is based on two non-EU bodies (EPO, UPC) no longer guarantee the democratic participatory rights of the people for whose benefit economic rules and property rights are justified, regulated and applied.     

Searching in Cooperative Patent Classification: Comparison between keyword and concept-based search

International patent corpus is a gigantic source containing today about 80 million of documents. Every patent is manually analyzed by patent officers and then classified by a specific code called Patent Class (PC). Cooperative Patent Classification CPC is the new classification system introduced since January 2013 in order to standardize the classification systems of all major patent offices. Like keywords for papers, PCs point to the core of the invention, describing concisely what they contain inside. Most of patents strategies are based on PC as filter for results therefore the selection of relevant PCs is often a primary and crucial activity. This task is considered particularly challenging and only few tools have been specially developed for this purpose. The most efficient tools are provided by patent offices of EPO and WIPO.This paper analyzes their PCs search strategy (mainly based on keyword-based engines) in order to identify main limitations in terms of missing relevant PCs (recall) and non-relevant results (precision). Patents have been processed by KOM, a semantic patent search tool developed by the authors. Unlike all other PC search tools, KOM uses semantic parser and many knowledge bases for carrying out a conceptual patent search. Its functioning is described step by step through a detailed analysis pointing out the benefits of a concept-based search vis-à-vis a keyword-based search. An exemplary case is proposed dealing with CPCs describing the sterilization of contact lenses. Comparison could be likewise conducted on other PCs such as International (IPC), European (ECLA) or United States (USPC) patent classification codes.     

基于深度学习的专利知识推荐服务研究

专利作为一种包含大多数领域中最完整的设计信息,可以为设计者解决设计问题提供有价值的指导。针对现有的专利推荐方法难以有效地推荐跨领域专利的问题,提出一种基于深度学习的跨领域专利知识推荐方法,用于创新产品的概念设计。对产品功能和知识需求情境进行建模,将设计问题进行标准化表达,生成设计问题空间。提出一种半监督学习算法（TG-TCI）将专利功能信息按照功能基自动分类和标记,利用实体识别算法（BERT-BiLSTM-CRF）提取专利应用场景术语、技术术语,结合国际专利分类（IPC）信息以表示专利的功能、情境、技术和领域属性,从而生成专利知识空间。通过设计问题空间到专利知识空间的功能基和知识情境映射查找所需的跨领域专利,根据技术和领域属性对它们进行聚类和评估,选出特定的专利以激发设计者的创造力。以一个实际案例进行分析验证,证明了基于深度学习的专利知识推荐模型的可行性及有效性。     

Technology evaluation through the use of interval type-2 fuzzy sets and systems

Even though fuzzy logic is one of the most common methodologies for matching different kind of data sources, there is no study which uses this methodology for matching publication and patent data within a technology evaluation framework according to the authors’ best knowledge. In order to fill this gap and to demonstrate the usefulness of fuzzy logic in technology evaluation, this study proposes a novel technology evaluation framework based on an advanced/improved version of fuzzy logic, namely; interval type-2 fuzzy sets and systems (IT2FSSs). This framework uses patent data obtained from the European Patent Office (EPO) and publication data obtained from Web of Science/Knowledge (WoS/K) to evaluate technology groups with respect to their trendiness. Since it has been decided to target technology groups, patent and publication data sources are matched through the use IT2FSSs. The proposed framework enables us to make a strategic evaluation which directs considerations to use-inspired basic researches, hence achieving science-based technological improvements which are more beneficial for society. A European Classification System (ECLA) class – H01-Basic Electric Elements – is evaluated by means of the proposed framework in order to demonstrate how it works. The influence of the use of IT2FSSs is investigated by comparison with the results of its type-1 counterpart. This method shows that the use of type-2 fuzzy sets, i.e. handling more uncertainty, improves technology evaluation outcomes.     

The mathematics of patent claim analysis

In patent law most of the crucial legal questions such as patentability and infringement are linked to the patent claims. The European Patent Office regards patent claims as a set of independent features which are examined separately in a more or less formal way. The author has found that this approach allows for developing a simple mathematical model which treats patent claim features as logical statements and patent claims as compound statements wherein the individual statements are connected by logical connectives. The proposed mathematical model provides a uniform system for examining various legal questions that are dealt with separately under current case law, moreover, it allows for developing an expert system for resolving complex legal situations and for automating the evaluation of a large number of patent claim variants that is currently not possible.     

Is the Patent Office correctly examining computer-related patentapplications? 2

In its discussion of whether the Patent Office is correctly examining computer related patent applications, the paper considers Compton's multimedia patent. This patent raised the issue of whether the Patent Office had properly discharged its duty. In this case the examiner had changed his mind twice before finally allowing Compton's patent. The paper considers how re-examination serves as an additional patent validity check, giving the Patent Office another chance to correct errors in the examination process     

Keyword-based patent citation prediction via information theory

ABSTRACT

Patent citation shows how a technology impacts other inventions, so the number of patent citations (backward citations) is used in many technology prediction studies. Current prediction methods use patent citations, but since it may take a long time till a patent is cited by other inventors, identifying impactful patents based on their citations is not an effective way. The prediction method offered in this article predicts patent citations based on the content of patents. In this research, Reconstructability Analysis (RA), which is based on information theory and graph theory, is applied to predict patent citations based on keywords extracted from the abstracts of selected patents. After applying three classes of RA (variable-based analysis without and with loops and state-based analysis), nine specific IV states of a predicting model are extracted. These states involve the four keywords of “chamber”, “hous”, “main”, and “return”. Lastly, the abstracts of the patents are examined to identify the technical subjects relevant to smart building technologies for which these keywords are proxies.     

基于词向量的专利自动扩展查询研究

专利检索与普通的文本检索有着极大的不同,专利文本包括权利声明、摘要、全文等不同部分,自然不能简单地将普通文本的检索方法应用到专利检索当中来。专利检索通常面临着召回率低下的问题,首先,由于专利文本具有极强的专业性,有着复杂的术语表达方式,用户输入的关键词通常无法明确捕捉到检索意图,导致检索结果不理想。其次,专利撰写时有意识地制造与众不同的词汇,导致相关专利无法被检索到。目前有很多的研究方法都旨在提高专利检索的召回率,但是仍然有许多问题有待解决,检索效果有待改善。提出了一个基于词向量的专利自动扩展查询方法,在词向量的基础上,构建一个关键词查询网络,通过稠密子图发现算法来寻找扩展词集合,提高扩展词的有效性。在CLEF-IP 2012数据集的基础上进行了充分的实验,实验结果表明,本文提出的算法能够保证扩展词集获取的灵活性和有效性,同时能进一步提高专利检索的召回率。     

Does the Patent Office respect the software community?

The US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) is now issuing about 20,000 new software patents every year-a tenfold increase in the last six years. Considering these inexplicable numbers, the IEEE, the ACM, and similar organizations should ask the PTO on what basis it thinks there are 20,000 novel and not obvious software inventions each year. The Japanese and European patent offices are demonstrating the same problems, but there are a few well-known reasons why the PTO issues so many patents: the indifference to prior art, the flood of patent applications, and the patent examiners' assembly-line working conditions     

专利信息本体的设计及应用

讨论了本体与国际专利分类表的内在联系。在专利信息服务系统中,以国际专利分类表为基础,提出了符合专利信息特点的IPC本体;设计了采用本体检索与关键字检索有效结合的组合检索方式;增加了从企业用户信息中提取出的用户兴趣模型。把用户兴趣模型转化为符合系统检索规则的检索条件加入到原组合检索中,进一步缩小检索范围,在一定程度上提高了专利信息检索的查全率和查准率。     

Patent protection for software in Israel

At first glance, US and Israeli law would appear to permit patent protection for all inventions that involve processes, including those involving software. Certainly, other technical processes or procedures, such as chemical or mechanical processes, have been eligible for patent protection in the US and Israel. US patent law states that whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, may obtain a patent therefor. Israeli patent law states that an invention, whether a product or process, which is new, useful, and useable in industry or agriculture and includes an inventive step is a patentable invention. However, in Israel and the US, software and software-related inventions have traditionally been viewed as ineligible for patent protection because of software's resemblance to human thought processes. This has been based primarily on the desire to avoid placing legal restrictions on truly mental processes, such as mathematics. Since the early 1980s, though, US courts and the US Patent and Trademark Office have taken a new approach by favoring patent protection for software-related inventions. The Israeli patent Registrar, however, seems to be wavering between the old and new approaches     

Product functional information based automatic patent classification: Method and experimental studies

In order to effectively extract the hidden information from the patent texts and to further provide this information to support the product innovation design process, this paper proposed an automatic patent classification method based on the functional basis and Naive Bayes theory. The functions of products are regarded as the innovation attributes, and the function co-reference relations of the patents in different areas are established. Patent classification methods are proposed based on the functions of products and the general steps of the patent classification process are proposed. In addition, three training methods are studied in the experiments, including multi-classification fully supervised training, multiple dichotomous supervised training and semi-supervised training. Through comparing and analyzing the experimental results, a patent text classifier is developed. In summary, this paper provides a general idea and the relevant technologies on how to build a patent knowledge space by automatically extracting and expanding the patent texts.     

中文专利属性值对抽取技术及应用

专利信息抽取是专利分析的基础,属性及属性值的识别与抽取是专利信息抽取所要解决的关键问题。目前,在中文专利信息抽取领域针对属性和属性值同步抽取的研究较少。本文以中文专利摘要作为实验语料,运用统计学习知识,提出一种基于条件随机场的抽取方法。该方法将属性和属性值视为命名实体,利用语料训练得到条件随机场模型,从而实现对属性和属性值的抽取;再利用挖掘的关联规则完成属性与属性值匹配。实验结果的准确率、召回率和F值分别是80.8%、81.2%和81.0%,其表明该方法能够高效同步抽取属性和属性值。同时,在抽取结果的基础上,本文完成了对专利的分析和同类专利的比较,体现了本方法的实用价值。     

A two-level parser for patent claim parsing

Patent claim parsing can contribute in many patent-related applications, such as patent search, information extraction, machine translation and summarization. However, patent claim parsing is difficult due to the special structure of patent claims. To overcome this difficulty, the challenges facing the patent claim parsing were first investigated and the peculiarities of claim syntax that obstruct dependency parsing were highlighted. To handle these peculiarities, this study proposes a new two-level parser, in which a conventional parser is imbedded. A patent claim is pre-processed in order to remove peculiarities before passed to the conventional parser. The process is based on a new dependency-based syntax called Independent Claim Segment Dependency Syntax (ICSDS). This two-lever parser has demonstrated promising improvement for patent claim parsing on both effectiveness and efficiency over the conventional parser.     

A rough set based approach to patent development with the consideration of resource allocation

Patent strategy is the overriding mechanism that helps direct investment, resource allocation, expectations, and policy development within an organization. Much studies of patent, for example, patent classification, patent analysis, patent management, patent strategy planning have been made. Due to the high cost of devoting to the research and development for a new patent application, it is essential for a company to develop the patent portfolio based on analyzing related information for fitting with cost constraint and maximizing the benefit. However, only few research attempts to develop new patents with the consideration of resource allocation, for example, optimizing budget utilization. In addition, the previous studies did not derive significant technologies and induct rules for resource allocation through patent analysis. In some cases, the patent analysis may process qualitative information that is difficult to analyze by standard statistical techniques. The rough set approach, which is suitable for processing qualitative information, is required to induct decision rules to derive critical technologies of patents. In this paper, a systematic approach to analyze existing patent information based on rough set theory with the consideration of resource allocation is developed. A case study is presented to demonstrate the contribution of the proposed approach which assists on decision-making in patent reform or invention with constraint resource.     

An adaptive design process generated by the integration of systematic design process and design patent protection mechanism

The conventional design processes are merely directed at measures for resolving problems, but fail to feature measures for procuring design patent protection. To overcome such a shortage, the authors have made a breakthrough by integrating the systematic design process (SDP) and design patent protection mechanism (DPPM) to develop an adaptive design process (ADP). The ADP includes 14 steps, as follows: (1) Problem, (2) Analysis, (3) Patent needs, (4) Concept, (5) Patent database searching, (6) Design database searching, (7) Integration, (8) Evaluation, (9) Decision, (10) Claim, (11) Solution, (12) Monitor, (13) Enforce and (14) Patent protection. In actual implementation, ADP allows designers to create novel creations easily and helps efficient procurement of design patent protection. In summary, ADP is a brand new design process with an advanced and effective nature.     

Micro Law-software patents

The concern that has been expressed in the computer industry about software patents is examined. Programmers fear that patents will be granted that monopolize basic concepts (such as pull-down windows or the use of menu bars) or algorithms that programmers need to write effective software. The Patent and Trademark Office seems to be willing to issue virtually any software patent presented to it, and it lacks facilities to search out the prior art in the field. The problem is worsened by the fact that patent applications stay on file in the Patent and Trademark Office in secret for about three years before patents issue on them and are published. Businesses could be established on products that suddenly become infringing when a patent springs into existence. The author suggests that, although the concerns are legitimate, they are somewhat exaggerated and that some of the problems can be solved by moderate institutional changes. Some of the problems, however, may resist solutions. He discusses the problems, and possible remedies, in the context of four cases in which the Supreme Court has decided software patentability, each time in the context of a review of a decision of the Patent and Trademark Office's denial of a patent to an applicant     

基于词汇相似度的IPC与CLC映射

专利作为一种具有特殊性质的文献,包含先进的技术方案,但存在管理困难、相对孤立、使用率低等弊端。针对该问题,定义分类法类目的概念模型,通过计算类目之间的概念相似度,为国际专利分类法与中国图书分类法建立类目映射。在计算类目相似度中引入与类目相关的词汇语义相似度计算,综合考虑类目的上下文环境对类目间关系的影响,降低专利数据的孤立性,实现专利数据与其他期刊数据的交互操作。实验表明,该方法能有效提高类目间相似度计算的准确率。     

Investigating the validity of subjective workload rating (NASA TLX) and subjective situation awareness rating (SART) for cognitively complex human–machine work

Subjective workload and situation awareness measures, such as the NASA task load index (TLX) and the situational awareness rating technique (SART), are frequently used in human–system evaluation. However, the interpretation of these ratings is debated. In this study, empirical evidence for the measures' theoretical assumptions was investigated by comparing operators' ratings collected immediately after performing a scenario and ratings collected after operators' acquisition through a video review of the scenario, knowledge of actual system states. Eighteen licensed control room operators participated in the simulator study, running 12 relatively challenging scenarios. It was found that the interpretation of TLX items involving introspection remained stable after operators acquired factual scenario knowledge, while the interpretation of items involving the perception of external events, such as situation awareness and performance, depended on the operators' scenario knowledge. The result shows that operators’ ratings could discriminate between mental effort, performance, frustration, and situation awareness. No clear evidence for the SART index as a measure of situation awareness was found. Instead, a subjective situation awareness measure developed for this study was distinct from workload and related to operator performance, showing that this type of measure warrants future investigation of its validity. The study findings help in developing measurement procedures and interpreting subjective measures. Finally, the study reveals that informing operators about the scenario can provide useful subjective ratings of situation awareness and performance. Future research should include procedures for how to inform participants adequately and efficiently in subjective assessments.     

面向创新设计的专利知识抽取方法

专利蕴含丰富的背景、技术、功能等知识,对创新设计领域起着重要的作用。对创新知识进行有效提取,能推动人们对知识的利用,助于突破固有的思维定势及知识面的限制,启发设计者从独特、新颖的角度进行产品设计。从创新设计的角度,提出基于组合特征和最大熵分类器的专利创新知识抽取方法。该方法运用自然语言处理方法,增加专利领域术语识别算法,联合词特征和最短路径闭包树句法特征,最后采用最大熵进行基于语义分析的知识提取,并对知识属性进行标注。实验结果表明,引入组合特征,能高效地处理专利要解决的问题,以及技术方案中的目标功能、作用原理、位置特征等创新知识之间的语义角色关系。