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The 7 Simple Secrets To Patent Searching

Posted on October 01 2020

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Tips and techniques for searching patents

We are in the middle of a revolution for the technological supremacy. A new age of the patent rights has arrived which is marked by the ever-expanding court battles over the patent claims with billions of dollars at stake.

The important role of the patent searcher has entirely changed. Today, a random search which may be satisfactory in the past, but can put your company or the client at risk. The good news is that the systems and software for operating patent data have improved greatly and have the techniques for using them.

Today, how some of the most successful patent searchers approach their job. In it, it reveals the 7 simple secrets that the patent searchers can apply to perform a world-class patent search.

Patent Search Tip 1: Use the Patent Classification Search

The classification searching is really easy. It is often more exact, far more rapid and more comprehensive than keyword searching. It just needs a little practice.

Today, there are four major classification systems for patents. Each of the classification systems for patent are unique as each has its own approach to patent taxonomy. For example, The US has its own (USPC), Europe has another (ECLA), WIPO and most of its member states use another (IPC), and Japan has one (F-term).

The good news is that beginning in 2013, the US and Europe will be shifting to a unified classification system called the CPC or Cooperative Patent Classification system. The CPC will be based on ECLA as it is based on the IPC.

As a result, there will be in effect, the two global patent classification systems i.e., The CPC is a superset of the IPC, and my guess (I have no insider information) is that Japan will accept the CPC once it is released and settles down a bit, but they may not abandon the F-terms entirely because the F-terms uniquely classify the patents by their features which is a handy way to search for the Japanese patents. F here stands for “feature.”

Since, there are more than 150,000 unique subclasses in the US system alone, some patent searchers will cross the reference an index to find the suitable classes, but there is a much rapid technique:

We trying to find patents for tire locking devices like the “Denver Boot.” Since we don’t know much about these devices, we searched for the “Denver Boot” because it was a term that we are familiar with, and we figured that somebody would use the string in his or her patent. we came up with just 9 US grants, but the best one was classified in 70/226, which is a three-dot subclass described as follows:

Class: LOCKS

Mainline Subclass: RSnubbolt

One-Dot: For control and machine elements

Two-Dot: Wheel

Three-Dot: Rotation Blocking

Clicking into that sub-class we find 112 patents, and if we extend the search to children subclasses of 70/226, we got 267 US grants. we found 267 US grants, all of which are in some way like the Denver Boot, in only 15 seconds. There is no way you could do that using keywords.

Patent Search Tip 2: Query by Example

Query by example is a search technique that lets you search for the documents in the patent corpus by using an existing known patent as an example or the “seed document.” You can then ask the patent search engine to show you some more documents like the previous one.

The most common methods to query by example are by using the language or the keywords in the patent text. The conclusions create a complex multi-term query designed to capture a very large set of the documents and set the most similar ones to the top of the list.

Automated the techniques for finding the similar patent documents can be upgraded with the synonym dictionaries and, in some cases, the Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), which needs a pre-computed lexicon.

Alternative methods use a patent’s classification fingerprint i.e., a fingerprint of the original and the cross reference classes, or the inventive and the non-inventive classifications, in a carefully crafted machine-generated the query that finds the documents that are classified “like” the target patent. we personally find that the class fingerprinting gives better results than even very sophisticated linguistic techniques because it is not limited by the vagaries of human language. Therefore, we still use both the methods because these methods complement each other.

Patent Search Tip 3: Cluster for Themes and Concepts

Patent searchers often dismiss clustering software because they feel the assertions by the software developers who overstep the true capabilities of the clustering. While this is certainly true, it doesn’t mean that the clustering has no value to the patent searcher.

Clustering organizes large sets of the documents into the logical themes or the concepts.

Consider the 267 documents in class 70/226 and children that were like the “Denver Boot.” After clustering the set, we get a primary theme, “Wheel Lock,” and several sub-themes including “Lock Assembly,” “Tire,” “Locking Rod,” “Bicycle,” “Locking Pin,” “Locking Bar” and more.

Remember, we don’t know much about these devices, but now we have three new terms that we can use in the search that we may not have thought of: “Locking Rod/Pin/Bar.”

You can think of clustering as a Keyword Extraction Tool, not for one patent, but for an entire set. Use clustering and your keyword-based search strategy will be vastly improved.

Patent Search Tip 4: Use the Boolean OR the operator

You already know the basic Boolean logic. There are three Boolean operators, you use when searching for patent: AND, OR and NOT. The tendency for most of the searchers is to overuse the AND operator because the ORs bring back too many results, but this is certainly the wrong approach.

To illustrate, say I have 20 terms, including the synonyms which describes the invention that I seek. If I use the AND operator then I will get just few hits, or even zero hits because the chances of one particular document containing all the 20 terms is low, when some of the terms are synonyms.

In the “Denver Boot” example, the patent drafter is likely to use either “Pin,” “Bar,” or “Rod,” but not all three terms. So naturally you’ll start deleting terms, but now your recall is diminished, and you’ll miss patents that contain the words you deleted.

A better approach is to join your terms by using the OR operator. You will likely to get over a million documents that will contain at least one of the terms in your list. Don’t let that constrain you.

Of course, you are not going to read a million documents and you don’t have to. The secret is in the arranging result. If you are arranging by the importance of the best matches across all the 20 terms will appear at the top of the list. You will notice this right away. As you are going through the results, at some point the patents will no longer be suitable, but who cares? Ignore them. The point is that the best matches will be at the top of your list!

Patent Search Tip 5: Use Patent Data Value indicators

There are well-known and academically studied value indicators in the patent data. The most studied example is the number of forward references a patent receives.

When a patent application is filed, patentees must submit a list of former art references called the backward (reverse) references. The patent examiner adds to this list during the prosecution.

Each patent cited by the patent application receives a forward reference in turn. That is, a newer patent document cites it as an example of the former art. Patents that accumulate the forward references at a high rate are more likely to be important or the fundamental patents.

As a result, once you have limited your set by using some of the other techniques, it is a good idea to arrange it by forward references and ensure that you have gone through it and understood all the highly cited patents.

Other value indicators include: the number of inventors, length of the claim one, the size of the simple patent family and even number of the drawings/figures.

Patent Search Tip 6: Repeat Your Searches

The chance of finding all the suitable patents in a single query is about as likely as Apple and Samsung settling their lawsuit because they want to stay friends.

In the Denver Boot example, I started with a keyword search, then did a classification search, then clustered the result set to look for new themes, then narrowed by more keywords. I then read a few patents and found some that were spot-on, and used two different query by example techniques to find the other patents that were most like that one. I found other patents that were relevant and repeated the process using those patents as new seeds.

Good patent search is a manic process. You will zoom out with a broad search and get a feel for the results then zoom into a few classes, assignees, or dates and then zoom in further to precise patents, then zoom out again based on the information that you have learned about the patents you find.

Zooming in and out allows you to take detours and uncover all the suitable art that are related to the goals of your search!

Patent Search Tip 7: Use Charts During Investigation Process

Charts are often used to present your final results to your management or the client, because they give a high level overview of your findings. Therefore, they are just as useful during the discovery process.

For example, if you have narrowed in, more or less, to the suitable set, it is a good idea to chart by the assignee or chart by the date so that you can notice both who the main players (assignees) are, and when the technology was at its early stages, reached its peak, and started waning.

Charts clearly display trends and aid your search.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that the future belongs to the patent holders. As technology gets more mingled and must borrow from those who have come before, a strong patent portfolio may be the only doorway into the marketplace.

During the last few years, the patent searchers who have helped their companies and clients to gain competitive advantages have become indispensable members of the team. Advanced software is a part of this trend, and any patent searcher who is expert in the use of the high-end platforms is that much more valuable.

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