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Patent Seekers: Patent search database as an intelligence tool
Patent searching can be used to generate valuable intelligence and provide you, or your company, with information that can aid in important decision making. PatWorld is an intuitive, powerful patent search database designed by patent search professionals to provide users of any level of expertise with the tools they need to perform patent searches, in a user-friendly interface with flexible subscription plans.
Initial searching PatWorld features a number of search forms ranging from quick, standard, advanced and “smart” searching. Use these tools to search for prior art that can help inform decision making on patenting a product, check for obvious infringement risks, or gain an insight into the stateof-the-art technology for research and development. Notably, the smart search (semantic searching) is a valuable tool for generating potentially relevant results in minimal time. Simply paste a section of text that describes the invention to be searched, and the custom smart-search algorithms will search for results and return patents in a deemed order of relevance.
Name Searching The Assignee or Inventor search field can be used to search for patents owned by a company or an individual. Use the INPADOC legal status tab to check the status of a patent in a particular territory and use the in-built links to the national registers for further detailed analysis. When searching for a company or individual, consider that IP may be held in the name of a parent company or subsidiary. This tool has several important applications, including checking the status of competitors’ patents, identifying new IP by competitors, and identifying IP/portfolios for possible acquisition. Alerts The alerts tool can be used to monitor a variety of different metrics, such as competitor publications, changes to the status of a patent or publications within a technology area.
Analysis The analysis tools can be used to create charts and graphs on a set of patent results. These can be a patent portfolio of a competitor or a specific subject matter area. The analysis tools have several applications including identifying filing trends (by year), global distributions of patent filings, main technology areas (by classification) and identifying the top filing assignees in the area. Additionally, users can analyse
representatives/agents to see who is representing particular companies.
Summary Searching and analysing with a patent database provides essential competitive intelligence that can be used for a variety of different applications, in addition to ensuring a productive and efficient route through the life cycle of a product. PatWorld offers an intuitive platform, refined by searching experts to provide a productive and cost-effective tool to gain access to this information.
