Patinnova 99 and EPIDOS 99

A snapshot of some of the key issues discussed at these conferences is provided. These include the future of patent information services in the new age of electronic databases on the Internet with contributions from Derwent, the EPO, the European Commission, and others. These presentations showed how the commercial and ‘free' databases may coexist in a way that could benefit the user with a potentially innovative product. Also illustrated was the value of patent information in the assessment process for awards to technically innovative firms.Another underlying theme explored in some depth in both conferences was the renewed efforts to introduce a single Europe-wide patent system, Community Patent Convention (CPC), and the benefits this could provide in the world-wide economy. The need to obtain a bundle of nationally valid patents to cover Europe was seen by many industrialists as burdensome, especially when compared with existing systems providing protection in analogous economic blocks such as the USA and Japan. The major hurdles still to be fully overcome include the cost and the necessity for translations, the issues of sovereignty of individual countries in Europe, the legal process for challenging a CPC patent, and the effect on national patent offices and their ability to continue to provide services not available elsewhere.     

An electronic future in the Finnish Patent Office

Initially, the article describes how the Finnish Government has developed telecommunications and Internet use by launching initiatives, such as electronic identity cards for Finnish citizens to enable clear authentication for e-commerce. In addition, Finnish law for e-commerce in the public administration already provides the legal basis for filing, e.g. patent applications, electronically. Against this backdrop, the article describes the way in which the Finnish Patent Office is moving forward rapidly in the provision of services on the Internet. These include both statutory and legal filing and like actions, as well as, in cooperation with the EPO, the dissemination of patent information. On patent information, the plans to make all Finnish patents and the corresponding legal status accessible through the Internet, to expand the patent information centres and to heighten public awareness, are outlined.     

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.     

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.     

A survey of users of the new British Library Patent Information Centre

The British Library acts as the national patent library in the UK. The patent library moved into a new, purpose-built building in London in 1999, to join other parts of the national library. A market research study was commissioned to study the changes in use of the patent library brought about both by the move and by other factors such as the increased accessibility of patent information on the Internet. The study looked at, for instance, the geographical location and type of business of users, their reason for searching (for themselves or for others, for checking originality, technical background, etc.), the extent to which users actually visited the library, what attributes they required of the services provided, and their use of Internet resources. The results reported include some comparisons with regional patent libraries in the UK. The article concludes that users' requirements have changed significantly, especially as a result of the impact of the Internet, and that the services provided need to adapt to these changes. The study results are being further analysed to determine the best way forward for these services.     

CD-ROMs for publication of patents: A critical review

The disadvantages of CD-ROMs for use by small firms and patent agents are discussed. These include cost of the hardware, unsuitability of the information provided on many CD-ROMs, total cost of printing specifications from the disks, and incompatibility of the various CD-ROM products.     

Australian use of patent information

In connection with the current government Review of the Australian patent system, a large amount of survey data on aspects of the use of patent information by industry, engineers, and others has been assembled during the 1980–1981 period. Results show that major reasons for Australian use of information are generated by the existence of the patent system itself, and that compared with other sources of technological information, patent specifications are a relatively unimportant information source.     

Patent information in a changing world: Perspectives from a major patent office

The patent information field is in a state of flux, caused by new tools and changing habits and philosophies. In this article a number of major issues arising from this situation are discussed, some ways in which the EPO is responding are described, and some ideas on future developments provided.Patents are increasingly rated as valuable assets, but is patent information, and especially bibliographic patent information, being treated with the same meticulousness as in the past? More people are searching than ever before. But are they squeezing out the information professional? What effect will the IPC reform, the arrival of XML and other developments have? By focussing on completeness, timeliness and correctness, can patent offices make a contribution to alleviate the situation?The author concludes that, more than ever before, it is important that expert patent information professionals ensure that their views and needs are communicated to both initial data suppliers, mainly patent offices, and to commercial database suppliers and hosts.     

New ways of the German Patent and Trade Mark Office (GPTO) for the dissemination of IP information

The new GPTO information policy is described. Its objective is to provide inexpensive information as a public information infrastructure for the promotion of economic development. The office’s intention to fulfil its information tasks in an up-to-date form, taking into account the interests of the commercial information suppliers, is explained. Specific aspects described include: raw data provision for downloading at marginal cost, the enhancement of the current Internet services, an XML interface, services in connection with the electronic document management systems within the GPTO, electronic filing and changes in public search room facilities. A new Internet platform to replace the present paper publications in 2004, including electronic IP gazettes, is also foreshadowed.     

PIZnet, the joint Internet site for German patent information centres

The objective of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Patentinformationszentren e.V. (The Association of German Patent Information Centres) is to encourage the ongoing development of the centres and to achieve broader public dissemination of industrial property rights information. Since use of the Internet has steadily increased amongst wide sections of the public in recent years, and since patent offices have taken steps to give the public free access to patent information, the association has set up a Germany-wide network known as PIZnet (“PIZ” standing for “patent information centres” in German) in co-operation with the Federal Printing Office. This network includes a presentation on all German patent information centres and the services they provide, it answers questions on the patent system, publishes offers of licences, and covers much else besides.     

Impacts of patent information on clustering in Derwent Innovation's ThemeScape map

ThemeScape Map (Clarivate Analytics, n.d.) is a data analytics tool provided by Derwent Innovation. It is used by patent researchers and R&D experts to generate quick patent intelligence (HG Insights, 2020). It is a general practice that users plot the map by using the default settings recommended by Derwent Innovation, but this default setting may not yield the most optimized results as desired. In this paper, the author contributes to the empirical study on the impacts of the combination of the different types of patent information to be used in ThemeScape Map when clustering patent data. As a result, this paper recommends patent analysts to include Patent Classification and DWPI data when plotting ThemeScape Map in order to achieve more optimized results.     

Determining patent filing targets based on patent cost retrieval from Patent Examination Data System

I have utilized Patent Examination Data System (PEDS) to propose a patent filing strategy decomposed by sub-divisions within a Research and Development (R&D) department of a large organization. The unique method relies on breaking the patent cost into fixed cost and variable cost. The variable cost is determined by automatically retrieving data from PEDS. The data includes historical average of number of interactions of a patent applicant with the patent office, grouped by technology domains. The variable cost may then be used in a linear programming model to obtain optimal filing targets for each sub-division within the R&D department. The proposed strategy will help an organization to take objective decisions for determining patent filing targets for its sub-divisions, which will eventually help with an efficient patent strategy for the organization.     

Benchmarking R&D and companies through patent analysis using free databases and special software: a tool to improve innovative thinking

The availability of free patent databases on the Internet, offers the opportunity of opening the door of patent information not only to patent specialists, but also to many other groups, such as researchers, decision makers, potential inventors and students. The goal of this paper is to show how the combination of free patent databases (in this paper esp@cenet^®) and dedicated software makes it possible to perform easily and rapidly tests on new ideas, the automatic benchmarking of an enterprise's activity and the stimulation of innovative thinking. The benchmarking of companies alone, or of clusters of enterprises is exemplified with reference to the concept of high temperature lubricating oil technology. How to improve innovative thinking is shown within the context of an analysis of coconut technology in postgraduate courses of competitive intelligence provided in Indonesia. Both applications emphasize that the role of patent information is expanding as a unique source of technical information because free availability combined with easy patent mapping and analysis allow non-specialists to use this information source in all technical aspects of innovation, research and development, and strategic planning.     

一种基于云平台的包装印刷设备增值服务系统

目的 研究基于Internet的云端通讯、 云数据分析和服务的机联网应用系统, 实现远程维护和工艺指导等设备增值服务。方法 基于凹印和柔印设备的机联网工程实践, 通过Windows Azure云平台,构建包括数据平台和网关、 印刷企业自有云和制造商服务云的三层云框架, 形成以数据网关WCF数据服务组件、 印刷企业云ServiceBus通讯组件为核心的设备运行数据的流程与接口, 并借助Azure的OLAP和机器学习平台, 结合设备运行和工艺管理数据, 形成印刷设备的智能云服务REST API平台。结果 提高了大型包装印刷设备的信息化服务水平, 创新了其云端化管理的应用模式, 提供了实用的系统应用案例。结论 该系统将包装印刷设备与云计算结合起来, 为设备制造商和印刷企业的设备管理及生产实践提供一种新的方案。     

Use of CD-ROM for patent information

Starting from the present situation in patent information management, the use of CD-ROM in patent information will be described. Information on feasibility, organization of data and on costs are given. Producing a CD-ROM offline database containing full-text and images of patent documents requires an appropriate subdivision of data files. Model calculations show that CD-ROM databases may be cheaper than common paper collection. A proposal is given for international cooperation using CD-ROM in the patent field.     

Patents as technological information in Latin America

This study shows the importance of patents as a source of technological information in Latin America. We studied the industrial property offices’ websites and the kind of patent information available such as laws, gazette, statistics, cost, forms, and contacts. We found at the USPTO and PCT websites the quantity of patent applications from applicants in Latin American countries filed in these offices. Brazil and Mexico in particular provide information on their websites to anyone interested in filing patent applications, searching patents and using patents as a source of technological information. This work shows that the quantity of patent applications is only slowly increasing in Latin America. Thus, each one of the 21 countries of Latin America needs to have a policy of dissemination of the importance of the patent system as a source of technological information to increase research and innovation in their countries.     

Corporate management of patents: Role of the industrial librarian

This paper is directed for the most part to the Corporate Management of Patents, from a technical information viewpoint. The librarian, who is seldom the direct user of patents, should become knowledgeable in the rich resources of patent data. Technology transfer can be accomplished by the engineer and scientist having the complete picture, which the librarian offers in response to a search request. The General Electric Company is used as an example of corporate patent management. The author prepared two surveys. Major library schools were questioned on whether courses in Patent Information are part of the curriculum requirements of a special librarian. The other survey directed itself to several dozen major industrial libraries in the United States on patent handling and management. The results of these surveys are given. Although there are over 30 patent depositories in the United States (see Appendix I), the ‘average’ research librarian does not make complete use of these depositories. In some cases, the survey indicated they were unaware of these data sources.The paper describes several key patents within the General Electric Company supported by library research, and specifically, man-made diamonds. On-line retrieval systems, where patent license data is offered by NASA and DTIC, are an example of sources available to the aerospace librarian, and the paper concludes with a forecast of how libraries and special libraries will retrieve patents and patent applications before the next century commences.     

Obsolescence or opportunity? Patent & trademark librarians in the Internet age

The effect of the Internet databases offered by IBM and by the USPTO on a US patent and trademark library is described. For example, document delivery has declined significantly. Implementation of a substantial price reduction by the library for this service has arrested the decline. A charged trademark search service has been launched on the back of an increased number of statutory trademark applications in the USA, and is proving popular. Another activity, awareness of IP issues, has also been expanded, especially on their website.The author concludes that the net result of all these changes is hard to predict. However she foresees that the collating of statistics on the number of users, the nature of their research, and their affiliation, will increasingly be needed as the Internet Intellectual Property services further impinge on the work of traditional patent information providers.     

The use of mindmapping software for patent search and management

Modern information technologies and in particular the internet have revolutionized the patent information professionals' work in terms of speed of access and information comprehensiveness from both company internal and external digital sources. Here, I describe how the digital mindmapping technique can be used to complement existing intellectual property management software solutions to meet the challenge of optimizing and managing patent search workflows as well as to rapidly organise and access highly dynamic, heterogeneous and scattered patent information sources. Both eye catching and highly memorable and at the same time self-explanatory mindmapping examples are presented. These were designed to include basic and advanced level digital mindmapping features tailored to significantly speed up and maintain a high work quality level of patent search professionals. A special emphasis is put on the great benefit of organising and accessing the plethora of internet-based worldwide online patent registers through mindmapping, both in terms of managing the constantly changing deep links to the actual search options for e.g., legal status information, and keeping track of the offered level of content.