If you read the first part of my series of articles, then the template for a report on patent research is now ready for you. It remains to fill it out: enter information on the documents found and analyze them in accordance with the objectives of the study. An important question that needs to be addressed now is: “What and where should I look for?” This article will be the answer.
As can be seen from GOST 15.011-96, patent research can be carried out both on the basis of patent documents, and on the basis of scientific and technical, market, regulatory documentation, materials of state registration. That is, during patent research, one can and should use scientific articles, monographs, reports on scientific research (R&D), and marketing research.
In the book [2], one of the leading authors on the subject of patent research - V.V. Shvedova - writes that in some cases patent research can be carried out only on the basis of research reports. I imagine such cases faintly and I think that a search should be carried out primarily on the basis of patent literature, and scientific publications and reports on research and development work as additional sources of information. A search among scientific sources complicates and lengthens the search phase of patent research, however, it is precisely such sources that are most conveniently used in the analytical part of the study to prove their point of view and identified trends in the national and world markets.
Another useful source of information for patent research is marketing analytics. Since patent research is carried out to assess, including the competitiveness of economic entities, writing the analytical part requires sources of information about the market in which the product will be sold.
So, in this article I consider three types of sources of information for patent research:
- patent literature
- reports on research and development,
- marketing research.
1. Sources of patent information
I must say right away that there is no single publicly available and complete source of patent information about Russian and world inventions. I do not write about paid patent databases in my cycle, since my goal is to talk about the experience of patent research based on free resources. If you are not a patent attorney and do patent research within the framework of research or development work, then patent databases with a convenient search and many functions are most likely not available to you. Subscribing to professional bases is expensive, and such expenses justify themselves only in case of constant use of the resource. If you do patent research sporadically, it’s useful to refer to the following publicly available resources.
1.1 FIPS Databases
1.2 Yandex patents
1.3 Google patents
1.4 Patentscope
1.5 Espacenet
1.1 FIPS Databases
The databases of the Federal Institute of Industrial Property have long remained the most comprehensive resource for finding patent information on Russian inventions. Unfortunately, this resource does not cover all the needs for patent information. A free range of resources is available in free mode, for example, only abstracts of inventions are available, and not the full texts of patents. The quality of this search leaves much to be desired: the results are unstable, and the databases are sometimes inaccessible for an unpredictable amount of time. Perhaps the reason for all these troubles is the move to a new site, which has been going on for several months. Be that as it may, to provide full patent information for free is not in the interests of FIPS, so you should not expect miracles from this search engine.
Sometimes in the literature published by FIPS, mention is made of the PatSearch database. Do not rush to look for it, because you still will not find it in the public domain. This is an internal FIPS database that is used by employees of the organization for patent searches. There is talk that they can someday put it in the public domain, but this is hardly believed, to be honest.
1.2 Yandex patents
The recently appeared Yandex.Patents resource is a good alternative to FIPS databases. This patent search engine is being formed on the basis of FIPS resources and contains 2.86 million patents and applications for inventions since 1924.
In this service, I am pleased with the clear interface, the full texts of patents and applications, scanned copies of patents attached to some search results. Yandex also announced a neural network search algorithm for similar patents, but so far I can’t say anything about how accurately it works. Reviews on the Internet about this feature are rather controversial.
1.3 Google patents
Google patents allows using a single search query to search for documents registered in Rospatent and foreign patent services. The database includes over 87 million patent publications from 17 patent offices around the world, as well as many other technical documents and books indexed by Google Scholar and Google Books. The database description contains a list of patent offices whose full-text documents are indexed: USA, EPO, Japanese, Chinese, North Korean, WIPO, Russian, German, English, Canadian, French, Spanish, Belgian, Danish, Finnish, Luxembourgish, Dutch.
Use of the search for all patents and patent applications of these patent offices is proposed by selecting the function around the world in the search interface. However, as the developers note, full coverage is not guaranteed. The Google patents database is also proposed to be used for patent research in order to determine the current state of the art at the stage prior to filing the application, therefore, non-patent literature is included in the search results. This literature is automatically classified according to the Cooperative Patent Classification, European Patent Classification (ECLA), and the classification of the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
There are almost as many Russian documents on Google patents as Yandex: almost 1.45 million Soviet patents and more than 1.5 thousand Soviet applications, 923 thousand inventions and more than half a million applications in post-Soviet Russia. [3]
In Google Patents it is convenient to search immediately for both Russian and foreign patents and applications. But if such a wide scope is not needed, you can always choose the national patent office of interest and, for example, search only for foreign patents or only for American ones.
The Google patents interface has such a useful feature as a quick transition to cited and cited patents. In some methods of patent search, these functions are considered necessary, since they help to quickly find a prototype and build a chronology of technological improvements, to track competition in various markets.
1.4 Patentscope
Patentscope is a patent database created by WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization). It stores over 73 million patent documents from national collections of various countries. The full text is not available for all documents, and there is not even an abstract for everyone, but if desired, they can be found in the databases of national patent offices. The availability of information by country and year is specified in the table .
1.5 Esp @ cenet
Espacenet is a publicly accessible database of the EPO (European Patent Office). It contains more than 110 million patents and patent applications from countries that are members of the EPO. What I like about this service is that you can choose quick search (smart-search), advanced search (advanced search) or search by the Joint Patent Classification (Classification search). Unfortunately, the full texts of patent documents cannot be seen here, but the bibliography is complete. There are also restrictions on uploading records. The EPO is currently testing a beta version of its search engine version and is collecting feedback about it.
When working with free resources, you cannot be sure that the information in them is current. There is an opinion that patents that are in the way (that is, existing patents that could interfere with the patenting of your product in any country) are best sought at national patent offices. Is the patent office of all countries worth the wool? Of course not. If you determine patent cleanliness, then your customer will write a list of countries in which this cleanliness needs to be verified. If there is no list, then it is most likely about Russia and the countries in whose markets the product will be sold.
If you determine the novelty of an invention, are looking for a prototype, then it is necessary to consider the patent offices of those countries in which your technology is developing most actively. For IT, such a country is primarily the United States. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is patenting American developments, as well as virtually all Japanese inventions. I can’t say this about Korean, because I haven’t met with accurate statistics.
It is not easy to search for anything on the Chinese Patent Office website http://english.cnipa.gov.cn/ . The monstrous volumes of domestic Chinese patents can drive one crazy, and give nothing new for patent research. With the help of patenting, Chinese companies not only formalize their intellectual property rights, but also solve their own internal problems. If the engine of the technology you are interested in is China, then, most likely, you can not get away from a search in the patent office of this country.
2. Sources of scientific and technical information
Here I will not talk about where to look for scientific books and scientific articles: catalogs of libraries, bookstores, Google and Yandex can be used by everyone.
I want to focus on the search for texts of reports on research and development work, abstracts of foreign scientific articles in Russian. If you take these sources into account, patent research becomes more complete, it shows that you not only took into account existing inventions, but also took into account new trends in your field that have not yet developed into inventions.
2.1 Information resources VINITI
Since 1952, the All-Russian Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of the Russian Academy of Sciences has been engaged in the storage and systematization of information on the natural, exact, technical sciences. The institute is located in Moscow, therefore, only residents of the capital can use it with unique funds that include domestic and foreign scientific journals and books, as well as deposited manuscripts. An electronic catalog is available for searching the funds.
The following information is available in electronic form:
- VINITI search database , which contains bibliographic information on fund documents - output and annotation in Russian. A search in this database helps find scientific articles, books, and foreign patents. Access to the database is paid, but a demo search mode is available, which is quite possible to use;
- VINITI publications are published on various topics and are scientific journals, online access to which is possible through the site elibrary.ru or through the website of the institute itself. Texts of articles do not get to the network right away, the delay can reach 12 months. The fact is that VINITI offers a subscription to paper and electronic versions of its journals, without it it will not be possible to quickly obtain full information from the institute.
In computer science, these publications may be useful:
- journal “ Scientific and technical information. Series 2. Information processes and systems . ” There are also magazines on economics, transport, flight safety, etc.,
- An annotated bibliographic index “ Deposited scientific works ”, which contains bibliographic information and fairly distinct annotations of scientific works deposited at VINITI, as well as in CIS depositories. In rare cases, you can even find the full texts of the deposited works.
VINITI also has paid services for the preparation of analytical reports, conducting searches among documents, etc. I will not describe these services in detail here. I can only say that VINITI abstract journals on 24 topics, including on computer science. They are distributed in paper and electronic form through the official distributors of VINITI, that is, through scientific libraries.
2.2 The Unified State Information System for the Registration of Research, Development and Technological Works of Civil Purpose (EGISU R&D)
EGISU R&D is a depository of reports on research and development, as well as the results of intellectual activity, which publishes not only bibliographic data, but also full texts of documents. If you want to supplement your patent research with information about other people's research and development work, then you should look in this system.
3. Sources of marketing information
The following are resources where you can find analytics for different markets for free.
3.1 RBC Research Store
In the RBC research store there is a section “IT and telecommunications”. If you sort studies in it by price, then at the top will be free. These studies are not new, and therefore give them away for free. However, if you need to compare data from a decade ago and up-to-date, then free reports can come in handy. Next are relevant and inexpensive studies at a price of 1 thousand rubles. The maximum research price is 45 thousand rubles.
Searching for open source marketing research is an impossible task. But to find analytical reviews by journalists and the media that cite paid research is quite possible. Below I have cited several free journalistic resources that do their own analytics or quote someone else's. I recommend using data from these sites for the analytical section of patent research.
3.2 CNews Analytics
Reviews of CNews Analytics , which the resource makes up on its own, can be very useful. They are freely available on CNews. The statistics provided in these reviews may be sufficient for patent research.
3.3 Best sellers of the IT market
On the site https://www.itbestsellers.ru/, in the “ Reviews ” section, they post fresh analytics regarding the IT market. These are articles without graphs or pictures that can be cited in the patent research report if statistics are needed.
3.4 IT-news
In the section “ Analytics of the IT and Telecom Market ” of the IT-news magazine, there are also fresh analytical articles on topics related to information technology. These articles are of different volumes, but the topics are very relevant. The publication actively quotes foreign studies, so you can safely turn to him for information about the global IT market.
3.5 CRN IT Business
There is also analytics on the CRN website: articles and notes with links to global market research can help reduce the time it takes to find the information you need for patent research.
Now that a circle of resources has been determined by which patent research can be carried out, we can talk about the methodology for searching and analyzing patent information. I plan to devote my next article to this question.
List of used literature:
GOST R 15.011-96 System for the development and putting products into production (SRPP). Patent research. Content and procedure
Shvedova V.V. Album of report forms on patent research: with explanation and methodological recommendations / V.V. Shvedova. - M.: Publisher Markhotin, 2016 .-- 120 p.
About Google Patents [Electronic resource]. - URL: support.google.com/faqs/answer/6390996