Under the guidance of Prof. R.C. Tripathi

-KUMAR HARSH (IIT2010111) -KUNAL KRISHNA (IIT2010165)

1. Introduction Important Concepts : Patents and Patent

Search? Goal Motivation

2. Literature Review3. Plan of work:-

Methodology4. Conclusion5. References

As Wikipedia defines it, a patent (/ˈpætənt/ or /ˈpeɪtənt/) is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time, in exchange for the public disclosure of the invention. An invention is a solution to a specific technological problem, and may be a product or a process[1].

A Patent Search is the process by which prior inventions or ideas are examined, with the goal being to find information that bears close similarity to a given Patent or proposed invention.

Patent search is a very important step to be followed before applying for a Patent as it helps choosing research problems, monitoring research and development of competitors, pays financially in terms of cashing opportunity, keeping a market lead and avoiding expenses on litigation and loss of inventory if injunction granted.

Our aim is to develop a methodology which can be used to obtain underneath patents and patent information of any product and its components[2], whose standard specifications are obtained from web sources(as specified by the manufacturer).

In this project, we have picked up the field of mobile technologies and we are using mobile phone as a product. We aim to unveil all the technologies used by a mobile device by first, finding the specifications and then finding the patents utilized by these.

Technological capabilities represent a critical source of the competitive advantage in a technologically competitive industry. Companies are required to accumulate and create core technology capabilities to maintain their competitive advantages [3]. Patents are the best resource for tracking of the latest advancements in technology .So, patent information may be the most required information for competing global corporates in the market who are manufacturing similar products.

R&D labs for the corresponding product can benefit from the patent information of the related technology.

It is an important for technological advancement. Even individuals need such information for technology mapping of products of their choice.

Promotes investment to commercialize and market new inventions so that the general public can enjoy the fruit of the innovation[4]. The use of this information can eliminate the need for conceptual or qualitative analysis of technological change. Furthermore, patent data can empirically explain most aspects of technological innovation activities in developed countries.

It is also a basis for evaluation of technological competitiveness of nations.[4]

In summary, patent information can help researchers and technology developers to make technological decisions, to facilitate the political and economical policy making of long-term national R&D strategy and policy in government offices, or it can be used as important data for R&D strategy making and managing R&D activities in individual firms.

Patent information provides an objective and public source to understand core technologies of companies.

Method proposed for identifying core technology capabilities for a company in the semiconductor industry.[5]

Computer aided patent portfolio analysis is a useful tool to evaluate both the R&D landscape and business opportunities. All necessary patent data can be generated from publicly accessible data bases. Patent data allow conclusions about a firm’s patent activity and the quality of its patent portfolio.[6]

Plan of work - Methodology

First of all, the user is asked to select the mobile brand for which he/she wants to find the underneath patents.

Queries are then run at the manufacturer’s website to present before the user, a comprehensive list of models to choose from. This step makes the methodology more dynamic as the latest models are updated as soon as they are added on the manufacturer’s website.

The complete specification data of the product(of model no. as selected by the user) is obtained from the manufacturer’s website itself. This is done by parsing the specifications-webpage using web page retrieval techniques. The complete set of technical specifications is presented before the user.

Subsequently, the module extracts all the important keywords from specification data using text-processing. These keywords are then searched to gather a list of patents related to the corresponding technology.

The patents retrieved are re-ordered on the basis of various parameters like date of filing of patent, patents filed and patents issued. Also, details like Assignee, Date of filing, URL, brief of abstract are provided for each patent inclusively.

The project, hence describes the methodology by which we can find the patents related to the latest products, entering into market. We have taken the case of mobile phones, but the method can further be extended for other products also. The patent set thus obtained can be further employed to find the applications of a product or technology.

Based on various ranking algorithms and search queries, the results obtained can be further modified according to the need of the user. Also, efficiency may be further improved.

Once a technology/set of patents for a particular function are identified, their various use cases in the field may be explore.

A typical case of a mobile device has been solved amicably. This may be the most required information for competing global corporates in the market who are manufacturing similar products, R&D labs engaged in the product type and the individuals having interest for technology mapping of the current products[2].

Thus, using simple search, one may not be able to expose and to get access to the specifications-based patents for all the components used in the product

Apart from aiding in R&D activities, an immediate application of our product can be of identifying overlapping patents assigned to competing agencies. A generic system can thus be created for technology unveiling of any product of interest. It can help the attorneys and company CEO’s to keep a watch on the patents related to the products of their interest[2].

[1] [online] 1998, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent (Accessed: 25 Feb 2013)[2] Kumar, R., Tripathi, R.C. and Tiwari, M.D. (2011) ‘Unveiling the technology: a case study for cellular mobile phones’, Int. J. Intellectual Property Management, Vol. 4, No. 4, pp.211–219.[3] Aleksander Pivk , Philipp Cimiano , York Sure , Matjaz Gams , Vladislav Rajkovič , Rudi Studer, Transforming arbitrary tables into logical form with TARTAR, Data & Knowledge Engineering, v.60 n.3, p.567-595, March, 2007 [doi>10.1016/j.datak.2006.04.002].[4] Wu, Hsiao-Chun, Chen Hung-Yi , Lee Kung-Yen (2007)‘Unveiling the core technology structure for companies through patent information’[5] Hsiao-Chun Wu, Hung-Yi Chen, Kung-Yen Lee, “Unveiling the core technology structure for companies through patent information,” [online] 2010, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/ S004016251000065X (Accessed: 25 February 2013)[6] B. Fabry, H. Ernst, J. Langholz, M. Köster, “ Patent portfolio analysis as a useful tool for identifying R&D and business opportunities—an empirical application in the nutrition and health industry,” World Patent Inf., 28 (2006), pp. 215–225[7] Holger Ernst, “Patent information for strategic technology management” [online] 2003, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0172219003000772# (Accessed: 25 February 2013)[8] [online] 1998,http://wordnet.princeton.edu/ (Accessed: 25 Feb 2013)