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Evaluating Patent Search Engines: A Comprehensive Survey

Discover and compare key features of top patent search engines like USPTO, GetThePatent.com, IP-Discover, and SurfIP. Analyze search options, interface, accuracy, and usability.

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Evaluating Patent Search Engines: A Comprehensive Survey

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  1. A Survey of Patent Search Engine Software Jennifer Lewis April 24, 2007 CSE 8337

  2. Introduction patent search engine survey • This survey was motivated by working with the United States Patent and Trademark Office [1] web site for the Patent Search alternative for Project 1 • Today I will do a brief survey of some existing patent search engines • This survey will: • Briefly introduce the basic features of a few selected search engines • Analyze the usefulness of each search engine using predefined criteria

  3. Search Engine Feature Comparisons patent search engine survey • Search engine search interface • Ease of use • Learning curve • Supported search options • Booleans • Wildcards • Multiple fields • Full text search • Returned results • Accuracy • Display • A little help?

  4. Determining Which Search Engines to Survey patent search engine survey • Only free (or free trial) software • Obtained search engine names from the following sources: • Patent Law Links Patent Search Engines [11] • Obtained this link from Dr. Maggie Dunham’s CSE 8337 web page [14] • Uncle Al’s internet search engines [12] • Google [13] • Only looked at functionality related to U.S. patents

  5. United States Patent and Trademark Office [1] GetThePatent.com [2] IP-Discover [3] Google Patent Search [4] Patent Hunter [5] Free Patents Online [6] Selected Search Engines patent search engine survey

  6. United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) [1] patent search engine survey • Available search options • Patent Number • Quick Search • Advanced Search

  7. USPTO – Patent Number Search patent search engine survey • Allows searching by patent number and that’s all

  8. USPTO – Quick Search patent search engine survey • Only supports queries on two fields within the patent. One of those fields can be “full text”

  9. USPTO – Advanced Search patent search engine survey • Very flexible – can query against unbounded number of patent fields

  10. USPTO Features patent search engine survey • Search engine search interface • Fairly easy to use. Advanced Search syntax has a small learning curve. • Supported search options • Booleans are supported in Quick and Advanced Search • Wildcards ($) are supported • Querying against multiple fields is supported in Quick and Advanced Search • Full text search is supported • Returned results • Accurate since the USPTO defines accuracy • Display is functional and concise • Some help is available and is mostly necessary for Advanced Search.

  11. Searching is free. Viewing the actual patents returned by the search is not. Available search options Text Search Field Search Boolean Query Search Number Search GetThePatent.com [2] patent search engine survey

  12. GetThePatent.com patent search engine survey • Text Search • Can search full text or just one field • Field Search • Interface to USPTO Advanced Search • All fields AND-ed together. Boolean searches allowed within one field.

  13. GetThePatent.com patent search engine survey Field Search Example

  14. GetThePatent.com patent search engine survey • Boolean Query Search • Identical to USPTO Advanced Search • Number Search • Can search based on one or more patent numbers

  15. GetThePatent.com Features patent search engine survey • Search engine search interface • Fairly easy to use. Boolean Query Search syntax has a small learning curve • Supported search options • Booleans are supported in differing ways in all searches • Wildcards ($) are supported in Text, Field, and Boolean Query Searches • Querying against multiple fields is supported in Text, Field, and Boolean Query Searches • Full text search is supported • Returned results • Seem similar to USPTO results • Display is functional and concise • Help is available and is mostly necessary for Boolean Query Search

  16. IP-Discover [3] patent search engine survey • Used an evaluation copy • full version: about $175 • Not web based, but does require an internet connection • Sort of a glorified search engine – lets you jump to “search sections” of other search engines

  17. IP-Discover

  18. IP-Discover patent search engine survey • Also offers “IPD Search” – cumbersome interfaces to existing search engines

  19. IP-Discover Features patent search engine survey • Search engine search interface • The ones actually implemented by IP-Discover are unwieldy • Supported search options are the same as whatever search engine IP-Discover is querying • Returned results • Seem to be accurate • The results display is cumbersome. Have to download a document then go dig it up. • Help is only available if you purchase the software.

  20. IP-Discover Features

  21. SurfIP [4] patent search engine survey • A project of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore • Available search options • Quick Search • Simple Search • IPC (International Patent Classification) Search • Patent Number Search • Structured Search • Has the ability to search many different databases

  22. SurfIP – Quick, Simple, & IPC Searches patent search engine survey • Quick Search • Searches full text in all databases • Simple Search • Searches full text of patents in one or more selected databases • IPC (International Patent Classification) Search • Searches selected databases for an IPC Code

  23. SurfIP – Patent Number & Structured Search patent search engine survey • Patent Number Search • Straightforward search based on patent number. Multiple numbers supported. • Structured Search • Maximum 4 search keywords • 6 patent fields • Search criteria AND-ed

  24. SurfIP Features patent search engine survey • Search engine search interface • Easy to use with a very low learning curve • Supported search options • Booleans supported • Structured search ANDs fields together, but Booleans are allowed within the field itself. Example: Inventor Name=fenner OR niedner • Wildcards (*) supported • Querying against a limited number of fields is supported by the Structured Search • Full text search is supported • Returned results • Results are accurate compared to USPTO • Viewing actual patent redirects user to USPTO site • Does not seem to work in Firefox (search often does not complete) • Help is the correct amount for the functionality provided by SurfIP. Not too detailed, but enough to assist users formulate their queries.

  25. Google Patents [4] patent search engine survey • Provides standard Google search as well as an Advanced Patent Search interface

  26. Google Patents patent search engine survey • It was easier to search with the Advanced Patent Search in order to search particular fields • Google has converted all imagery from the USPTO database into an easily searchable format. • While the Advanced Patent Search options do not support searching against all patent fields, the Google search supports searching the full text of the patent

  27. Google Features patent search engine survey • Search engine search interface • Easy to use since for users that are familiar with Google • Low learning curve for users that are unfamiliar with Google • Supported search options • Booleans are supported • Advanced Search fields are AND-ed together while other boolean operations are allowed within the field keywords • Wildcards ($) are supported • Querying against multiple fields is supported by searching fields in the Advanced Search options • Full text search is supported • Returned results • The accuracy of the results does not seem to be consistent with the USPTO search results. • Most search engines query the USPTO database while Google seems to have created their own version of the USPTO database and the query is performed against that instead. • Actual patents are in a very easy to read format. • A little help? • Provided in the form of “Patent Search Tips”. It’s useful enough to give a user enough information to formulate a query.

  28. Patent Hunter [5] patent search engine survey • Not a web based application • Not free (but it has a free trial!) • Available search options • Basic • Advanced • Also offers the ability to save searches and search results

  29. Patent Hunter Basic Search patent search engine survey • Strikingly similar to the USPTO quick search

  30. Patent Hunter Advanced Search patent search engine survey • Very nice interface to USPTO Advanced Search

  31. Patent Hunter Features patent search engine survey • Search engine search interface • Very easy to use with a low learning curve • Supported search options • Booleans are supported for both Basic and Advanced Searches • Wildcards ($) are supported for both Basic and Advanced Searches • Querying against multiple fields is supported • Full text search is supported • Returned results • Results are consistent with USPTO results • To view a patent, users must right click on a patent number and download it (PDF version) • Some help is available on how to formulate queries

  32. Patent Hunter Results Display

  33. Free Patents Online [6] patent search engine survey • This web site actually incorporates word stemming! • Uses Porter Stemming method • Available search options • Basic (available on all pages) • Advanced • Quick • Expert

  34. Free Patents Online patent search engine survey • Basic search • Seems to be a full text search (not as well documented as the rest of the search options) • Advanced – Quick search • Predefined set of fields that are AND-ed together • ORs ignored within a field’s keyword

  35. Free Patents Online patent search engine survey • Advanced – Expert Search • Similar to USPTO Advanced Search • Word Stemming • Can be turned on or off • Results can be sorted by relevancy • Example: • Title: Invent • Word Stemming: on • Sort Order: by Relevancy

  36. Free Patents Online

  37. Free Patents Online Features patent search engine survey • Search engine search interface • Easy to use. • Supported search options • Booleans are supported for all searches • Wildcards (*) are supported • Querying against multiple fields is supported • Full text search is supported • Returned results • The accuracy seems to match the USPTO. Hard to get a good feel for how accurate the stemming algorithm is. • Excellent results display. The patent display is functional. • A little help? • Excellent help – tutorials, descriptions, etc

  38. Ease of Parsing Patent Data patent search engine survey

  39. Other Patent Search Engines patent search engine survey • esp@cenet [7] • European Patent Office • Worldwide search includes U.S. Patents • IP News Flash [8] • Searches families of patents • Maintained as a hobby • Intellectual Property Digital Library [9] • Searches patent applications • SurfIP – Intellectual Property Office of Singapore [10] • Can specify to search only USPTO database

  40. Summary patent search engine survey • Most patent search engines are interfaces to USPTO • Google obtains data and searches that data • Many of the interfaces do not expand on USPTO functionality • Free Patents Online • Incorporates stemming and scoring of retrieved results as opposed to simply querying fields in the USPTO database. • The most useful help

  41. Conclusion – Future patent search engine survey • It would be interesting to see patent search engines use more Information Retrieval techniques akin to Free Patents Online’s stemming/scoring and Google’s patent information indexing • Interfaces other than variations on the USPTO theme would be nice.

  42. Contact Information patent search engine survey • Jennifer Lewis • sylvara@comcast.net • 505-844-1351 • These slides will be available at: http://home.comcast.net/~sylvara/8337/presentation.html through the end of May 2007.

  43. Bibliography patent search engine survey • United States Patent and Trademark Office, “Patent Full-Text and Full-Page Image Databases”, July 7,2006; http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html. • Cartesian Products, “GetThePatent.com - Online Patent Search Database”, April 2007; http://www.getthepatent.com/. • KPN Consulting, “IP-Discover Home Page”, April 2007; http://www.ipdiscover.com/. • Google, “Google Patent Search”, April 2007; http://www.google.com/ptshp. • Patent Hunter, “Patent Hunter 3.5 - Patent Downloading, Searching and Management Software”, April 2007; http://www.patentdatabase.com/.

  44. Bibliography (cont.) patent search engine survey • Free Patents Online, “Patent Analytics and Patent Searching”, April 2007, http://www.freepatentsonline.com/. • European Patent Office, “esp@cenet”, April 2007; http://ep.espacenet.com/. • Rolf Claessen, “IP Newsflash”, April 2007, http://www.ipnewsflash.com/. • World Intellectual Property Organization, “Intellectual Property Digital Library”, April 2007, http://www.wipo.int/ipdl/en/. • Intellectual Property Office of Singapore, “SurfIP”, April 2007; http://www.surfip.com/.

  45. Bibliography (cont.) patent search engine survey • PJPatents, “Patent Search Engines”, April, 2007;http://www.patentlawlinks.com/patsearc.htm. • Uncle Al’s Search Engines, “Uncle Al’s Search Engines”, July 15, 2006;http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/net2.htm. • Google, “Google”, April 2007;http://www.google.com/search?q=patent+search+engine. • Dr. Maggie Dunham, “CSE 8337 Spring 2007”, April 2007;http://engr.smu.edu/~mhd/8337sp07.html.

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