Blockchain patent landscaping: An expert based methodology and search query

The present study is concerned with the emergence of Blockchain related technologies in terms of patenting activity. Blockchain has captured the attention of the public and research has intensified in this field over the last few years, making it a highly interesting topic of study for a patent analysis in order to obtain insight into the developments of this emerging technology. In this paper we present a unique methodology and exhaustive search strategy for identifying Blockchain patent documents by using a combination of specific keywords and patent classifications. This query was built in cooperation with subject matter experts of the European Patent Office (EPO). Our keyword set was then analysed by relevance and was prioritised. The set of specific relevant patent classifications was furthermore combined with keywords in order to exclude false positives. With our methodology we present an exhaustive query for retrieving a highly relevant dataset of Blockchain related patents, extracted from the EPO databases that can be used for patent landscaping exercises or any other bibliometric analysis. In a case study we applied the search strategy to analyse worldwide Blockchain patenting from 2008 till 2018. The results are presented in this paper.     

A guide to efficient keyword, sequence and classification search strategies for biopharmaceutical drug-centric patent landscape searches - A human recombinant insulin patent landscape case study

Searching biopharmaceutical drug-related patent information is generally considered to be challenging. In particular, setting up efficient search strategies for comprehensive retrieval of high amounts of patent documents related to processes and methods of use, that achieve a reasonable level of precision, but still remain within a particular search scope. While it is generally accepted that patent information cannot be searched using standardized approaches, it is desirable to have a basic rule set for successful biopharmaceutical drug-related patent information retrieval, particularly facing a steady flow of patent expirations for prominent biologic drugs. The present human recombinant insulin case study shows an assessment of keyword, sequence and classification search strategies for establishing biopharmaceutical drug-centric patent landscapes. The search results of both crude and sophisticated keyword search strategies, as well as of a sequence search strategy, were compared in terms of the key information retrieval quality indicators; the recall and the precision. Through analyses of the relevant retrieved documents, a quality assessment of keyword choice is provided, as well as determining focused IPC and Derwent Manual classification codes and terminology from original patent and Derwent documentation abstract titles. All of which can be used for setting up more efficient search strategies and facilitated document categorization.     

Ontology-based neural network for patent knowledge management in design collaboration

In order to stimulate innovation during the collaborative process of new product and production development, especially to avoid duplicating existing techniques or infringing upon others’ patents and intellectual property rights, the collaborative team of research and development, and patent engineers must accurately identify relevant patent knowledge in a timely manner. This research develops a novel knowledge management approach using ontology-based artificial neural network (ANN) algorithm to automatically classify and search knowledge documents stored in huge online patent corpuses. This research focuses on developing a smart and semantic oriented classification and search from the sources of the most critical and well-structured knowledge publications, i.e. patents, to gain valuable and practical references for the collaborative networks of technology-centric product and production development teams. The research uses the domain ontology schema created using Protégé and derives the semantic concept probabilities of key phrases that frequently occur in domain relevant patent documents. Then, by combining the term frequencies and the concept probabilities of key phrases as the ANN inputs, the method shows significant improvement in classification accuracy. In addition, this research provides an advanced semantic-oriented search algorithm to accurately identify related patent documents in the patent knowledge base. The case demonstration analyses 343 chemical mechanical polishing and 150 radio-frequency identification patents sample sets to verify and measure the performance of the proposed approach. The results are compared with the previous automatic classification methods demonstrating much improved outcomes.     

Free patent databases on the Internet: a critical view

Free patent databases on the Internet are useful, particularly as they allow users in numerous locations to quickly access information. This advantage of ease of access is however a disadvantage if the novice user does not realise that expert advice is needed at the site itself, and ideally from staff at patent libraries, so that a good search can be constructed and so that the results can be properly interpreted. Other problems include the potential disappearance of such databases, or charging for them; problems in adequate access, particularly when the latest software is used; poorly designed search masks in many sites; poor or non-existent help; and the inability to browse data. Suggestions to improve the situation include ensuring that compatible products on CD-ROM or DVD co-exist; much better help keys; hypertext links to classifications and to patent libraries; and easy scanning through drawings.     

Prioritizing patent sequence search results using annotation-rich data

The European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) provides a free-access sequence search service that combines some of the most comprehensive, annotation-rich resources with a broad range of search and analysis tools. These resources contain patent abstracts, patent chemical compounds, patent sequences and patent equivalents extracted from the EPO, USPTO, JPO and KIPO, in addition to non-patent data. Patent protein and nucleotide sequence data are also available as annotation-enriched non-redundant datasets that clearly display priority dates. Search results are linked to a wide array of specialized databases and, for proteins, functional predictions that add in-depth annotation to help prioritize results when building a claim, without the need to search multiple databases.     

A patent search strategy based on machine learning for the emerging field of service robotics

Emerging technologies are often not part of any official industry, patent or trademark classification systems. Thus, delineating boundaries to measure their early development stage is a nontrivial task. This paper is aimed to present a methodology to automatically classify patents concerning service robots. We introduce a synergy of a traditional technology identification process, namely keyword extraction and verification by an expert community, with a machine learning algorithm. The result is a novel possibility to allocate patents which (1) reduces expert bias regarding vested interests on lexical query methods, (2) avoids problems with citation approaches, and (3) facilitates evolutionary changes. Based upon a small core set of worldwide service robotics patent applications, we derive apt n-gram frequency vectors and train a support vector machine, relying only on titles, abstracts, and IPC categorization of each document. Altering the utilized Kernel functions and respective parameters, we reach a recall level of 83% and precision level of 85%.     

The patent system in Singapore

Patent protection in Singapore was formerly only available by obtaining a UK patent grant and then registering the grant in Singapore. The patent system that was implemented in 1995, and has replaced the former procedure, is described here. Applicants can request search and examination, in which case the work is outsourced to the Austrian or Australian patent offices. Alternatively applicants can submit the results of the corresponding search and examination reports carried out by a prescribed office (the patent offices of Australia, Japan¹, New Zealand, UK, USA, Canada (This only applies to Canadian patent applications filed when in English.) and the EPO (This only applies to European patent applications filed when in English.)). A mixed mode of relying on a search from a prescribed office or under the Patent Co-operation Treaty, followed by filing a request for examination, is also possible. The ePatents system, currently providing online Singapore patent register, database, renewal and address updating facilities, is summarised, as is SurfIP, an online service providing a patent search covering many databases and countries, IP management tools, and facilities to assist the commercialization of IP.     

Blurring the line between bioinformatics and patent analysis

Biological patent analysts are often faced with querying multiple databases of sequence and text. After retrieving the query results, the results must be analyzed by reviewing patents and applications in a form of manual data reduction. Once families are identified for final analysis, the analyst must expand back out, looking at the members of those patent families. Again, sequence and text is reviewed manually, not algorithmically. One way for patent analysts to reduce the number of repetitive tasks performed is through the creation of macros. Such macros can be used for time-consuming tasks like global formatting, searching and replacing within a document, formatting extracted sequences into FASTA, or even converting three-letter amino acid code into single-letter code. Another way for a patent analyst to reduce repetitive tasks in biosequence patent analysis is through an alliance between biological patent analysts and bioinformaticians. Such an alliance could result in the development of tools that focus on these types of repetitive tasks. A bioinformatician is skilled in looking for solutions to various repetitive tasks. Such a solution could even be packaged and deployed to those colleagues who would benefit from access to such a time-saving program. Finding a way to automate repetitive tasks will free the patent analyst to spend more time on intellectual analysis of the results.     

A collective and abridged lexical query for delineation of nanotechnology publications

In order to monitor articles/patents in nanotechnology, there is little agreement on a universal lexical query or even an explicit definition of nanotechnology. Here in the light of a proposed definition, a set of case studies has been conducted to remove keywords which are not exclusive to nanotechnology. This resulted in a collective and abridged lexical query (CALQ) for nanotechnology delineation. Through bibliometric quantification of already-proposed as well as the novel keywords, it was shown that all keywords included in CALQ have considerable exclusive retrieval and precision, while the removed keywords do not satisfy either of these numerical thresholds. This approach may also be applied for the future updating of CALQ.     

A proposed framework for the certification of the patent information professional

Gone are the days of exclusive access to esoteric patent information databases or rummaging through a classification box of patent publications in order to identify prior art. Patent information is now widely and freely available to all. Although the availability of patent information will likely facilitate future innovation, the access is resulting in a wide range of skills and competencies among those who search and interpret patent information. The time has come to standardise these skills and to devise a certification scheme so that the art of patent searching and analysis is entrenched as a profession for many years to come. This article reviews the progress towards such a scheme, and explains the current PIUG proposal, a key element of which is a three tiered examination structure.     

Complementary searching in patent databases

Often completeness of search results is an important demand. If not, the degree of recall should at least be estimated. A simple direct search example combining a chemical with an electrical aspect is executed on several patent databases, WPI, USP, CLAIMS, CA and JAPIO, using the special features of each of them. As one result consideration of paraphrases and special aspects is necessary even for straight-forward search terms with clear definitions like electrode. The other and main result is an unexpectedly high necessity for the use of additional databases: even the best database retrieves only 50–65% of the total result, and even the fourth database adds a considerable amount of relevant information to the results of three other databases.     

Capturing new developments in an emerging technology: an updated search strategy for identifying nanotechnology research outputs

Bibliometric analysis of publication metadata is an important tool for investigating emerging fields of technology. However, the application of field definitions to define an emerging technology is complicated by ongoing and at times rapid change in the underlying technology itself. There is limited prior work on adapting the bibliometric definitions of emerging technologies as these technologies change over time. The paper addresses this gap. We draw on the example of the modular keyword nanotechnology search strategy developed at Georgia Institute of Technology in 2006. This search approach has seen extensive use in analyzing emerging trends in nanotechnology research and innovation. Yet with the growth of the nanotechnology field, novel materials, particles, technologies, and tools have appeared. We report on the process and results of reviewing and updating this nanotechnology search strategy. By employing structured text-mining software to profile keyword terms, and by soliciting input from domain experts, we identify new nanotechnology-related keywords. We retroactively apply the revised evolutionary lexical query to 20 years of publication data and analyze the results. Our findings indicate that the updated search approach offers an incremental improvement over the original strategy in terms of recall and precision. Additionally, the updated strategy reveals the importance for nanotechnology of several emerging cited-subject categories, particularly in the biomedical sciences, suggesting a further extension of the nanotechnology knowledge domain. The implications of the work for applying bibliometric definitions to emerging technologies are discussed.     

Full-text prior art and chemical structure searching in e-journals and on the internet – A patent information professional’s perspective

In depth analysis of non-patent literature prior art is a crucial step in checking patentability of new inventions and validity of competitor’s patents, since by patent law relevant subject matter disclosed in non-patent literature is as important as any patent document. E-journal articles, as well as any scientific and technical information published on the web are an important source of prior art that is very often insufficiently covered and indexed by commercial databases. This article reviews search and display capabilities of e-journal search sites of different publishers and hosts, as well as their value for full-text prior art analysis to enhance retrieval from commercial databases. Moreover, current developments and future prospects of chemical structure searching both in e-journals and on the internet are discussed.     

Comparison of search systems for online chemical patent searching

The most important search features of Dialog, Data-Star, Orbit, STN and Pergamon InfoLine online services are compared with special attention to chemical patent retrieval. The reasons for online patent searching and the criteria for choosing the suitable databases and search services are discussed.     

Creation and implementation of a customized patent information training program for chemists in a global company

To address a broad company wide education initiative to train non-patent associates on intellectual property related issues, a customized patent information training program targeting discovery chemists was created and implemented.An electronic survey was designed to identify training needs for specific skills pertaining to patents and the patenting process, searching and retrieving patent information, and interpreting search results. From the results of the survey, a training program consisting of several modules was developed and marketed globally through the corporate intranet and by using targeted emails. The modules were a series of classroom based training classes that covered the topics of most interest: a) understanding patent families and legal status, b) differences between different types of patent searches, and c) strengths and attributes of different patent databases. The success of the program was clearly evident based on the high response rate, the positive feedback received and by it stimulating communication and collaboration between patent analysts and discovery chemists.Key determining factors in ensuring the success of the program were the support of the training effort by management, face-to-face communication and making the attendees feel that they were contributing to the long term success of the training program.     

Patents from Latin America and Spain with Latipat: Country coverage and ability to search for emerging topics like nanotechnology

The Latipat project unifies patent information from 20 Ibero-American countries making this content available and free of cost via several major public patent search systems: namely Espacenet, Patentscope and Invenes. These different accesses are presented and their data coverage is analysed. A comparison showed that, although the patent information comes from the same origin, the country coverage and actuality of the patent information varies substantially in the three compared search systems. Regarding the technology coverage, an exemplary search for nanotechnology patents revealed different results depending on the keyword and classification support of each search system.     

Qualitative and quantitative analysis of patent data in nanomedicine for bridging the gap between research activities and practical applications

Nanomedicines have made a great breakthrough in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease, but there are still significant challenges to make a leap from the scientific discovery to the practical and clinical success. Herein, we contribute to establish effective strategies that can bridge the gaps by an integrated and balanced analysis of patent literatures on the nanomedicine. Since most of successful commercialization of technologies stems from patents, it is important to comprehensively analyze the patent information. Unfortunately, many previous studies of patent analyses for technological trends and strategies are dependent on only quantitative analyses using structured data such as keyword networks and indicators, thus, these studies are difficult to offer detailed technological key components and trends on scientific perspectives. To address these problems, the present study performs qualitative and quantitative analysis using both structured and unstructured patent data, and provides evolving detailed trends in nanomedicine fields from a scientific point of view. Furthermore, upcoming advances in strategies regarding clinical needs, commercial events and strategies of potential leading groups in nanomedicine could be catalogued. Our analytical method and the results of several meaningful patterns and trends were applied to forecast the future practical issue of nanomedicines.