Competitive and Technical Intelligence ToolBox

Taiwanese Patent Office (TIPO) added a number of new features to the search options in its online "TWPAT" database. The English search interface in particular has been enhanced making it easier for Western users to access Taiwanese patent information. For example, users can now use the English interface to retrieve full-text documents in PDF format as well as English legal status data. The Chinese platform also has some new features, including access to full-text data. Enhanced search options in English To search in Taiwanese patents, utility models and designs in English, all you have to do is go to http://twpat.tipo.gov.tw/twcgi/ttsweb?@twpat2_e. Legal status in English Taiwanese legal status information dating back to around 1974 is now also available in English. The legal status is shown along with the bibliographic data. The following legal status data is currently available for patents and utility models:  Date of grant  Date of withdrawal/lapse  Maximum term  Due d...

PatentRetriever is a new service offering PDF downloads of US, European and PCT patent applications. This is the second such service to appear recently, following rapidly on the heels of IP Newsflash , an IP meta-information portal for IP news, official notices, case law, patent family search and an EP monitor, which has added a free patent PDF download based on the EPO's Open Patent Services (OPS).

ProQuest has announced the purchase of Dialog from Thomson Reuters. Founded 40 years ago, Dialog is the longest standing professional online database host service. ProQuest's acquisition of Dialog will reinforce its position in the market for academic and scientific information. For more information Click here

New versions of the core and advanced levels of the International Patent Classification (IPC) will enter into force on 1 January 2009. No further revision of the IPC will take place before that date. Major changes will take place in three areas – see table. Class - Subject - Change A01N65/00 - Biocides - New detailed subdivision in core level H04W - Wireless - New subclass with main communication groups and a few subgroups networks in core level, most subgroups in advanced level H04H - Broadcast - New core level scheme communication for subclass (corresponding advanced level scheme already introduced in IPC 2008.01) The rest of the changes concern mainly maintenance, e.g. the clarification of titles, or the transfer of informative references from the scheme to the IPC definitions.

Nanoparticle delivery systems are a dynamic field that is changing the way active agents (e.g., therapeutic, diagnostic, and imaging agents) are developed and delivered. These small delivery vehicles are designed with the goal of (1) overcoming limitations such as short plasma half-life, stability issues, and potential immunogenicity associated with small molecule and biomacromolecular therapeutics, and (2) minimizing toxic side effects while maximizing therapeutic activity.1 Active agents that were once considered obsolete or unusable are finding new life when delivered in conjunction with a nanoparticle carrier. Nanoparticle carriers having varied structures and compositions are finding utility as treatments and diagnostics for diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and HIV/AIDS. The first nanoparticle-based therapeutics has already come to market and more will surely follow in this developing field. Source

Nanotechnology promises to have a major impact on health care. Indeed, one of the first major product success stories to come out of this emerging field is a nanoparticle-based drug for cancer therapy. Abraxane, manufactured by Abraxis, uses albumin nanoparticles to enhance the effectiveness and reduce the side effects of paclitaxel, a chemotherapy drug used for treating breast cancer. In July 2006, Elan Pharmaceuticals filed a complaint alleging that the Abraxane infringes two of Elan's patents regarding nanoparticle formulation technology. After two years of discovery battles, the dispute has finally gone before a jury, which rendered a verdict in favor of Elan for $55.2 million. In this article, IP lawyers William Prendergast and Heather Schafer provide a background of the dispute, summarize the case, and draw conclusions regarding its implications for nanotechnology patent litigation. Source

Nanotechnology research and commercialization activity in India is bolstered by improved private-public partnerships, and need-based research and development. Sensing the importance and application possibility of modern technologies, the Government of India has increased the central Science and Technology budget for its departments/agencies to over US $30 billon in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2007–2012), an approximate five-fold increase over the actual expenditure during the last Plan. Several private companies and large industrial houses have established in-house advanced research facilities dedicated to innovation in this area. Regulatory efforts are however in their infancy, restricted primarily to specification of standards for selected nanomaterials with some emphasis on nanotoxicity. Source

e-Biosci is clever in that it accepts any text as input (an abstract, or even a whole manuscript, although it was quite sluggish!) and calculates the concepts contained within. You can add and remove concepts to refine your search, and weight how important they are, and then search using these concepts in Medline abstracts and some full text, including BioMed Central's. The advantage of this approach is that you never need to think about appropriate keywords or search terms; the disadvantage is that some concepts are quite diverse. A good example is that an abstract about physician uncertainty in medical decision-making returned some physics articles near the top! I find that it can return items that you probably wouldn't have found otherwise, and can be very accurate at times.

PubNet from the Gerstein lab looks really promising. It visualizes the network resulting from a query to Medline. The network to the left, focussed around Howard Ochman and Emmanuel Lerat, clearly shows a network of collaborating colleagues, but I only ran that search because I knew of the network already. It could be useful, but I've not found the time to devote to exploring its possibilities, and it takes a while to generate the visualization at times. If it were quicker and easier to navigate the results,

Kfinder, takes an abstract or other text as the input, and suggests keywords based on the frequency of occurrence of improbable words. You select keywords, and it returns researchers who match that search in Medline at least twice. Kfinder is quite slow and limited to Medline, but it is intuitive, and a good start to selecting keywords if you haven't had much practice.

The controller general of patents, designs and trade marks has invited public opinion on a patent sought by Godfrey Phillips on a cigarette packet-cum-match box designed and developed by the company. Godfrey Phillips, which manufactures leading cigarette brands - Four Square, Stellar, Red and White and Cavanders - aims at giving smokers an option to do away with a separate lighter or match box. According to the company, which filed application on October 31, 2005, the improved cigarette packet with match box comprised a slide having side flaps on two longitudinal sides and end closures at the two transverse sides. The packet would be equipped with a shell accommodating the slide having flaps on two longitudinal sides, a bundle of cigarettes wrapped in a foil and a match box with sticks in a tray.

The European Patent Office (EPO) is warning of "Global Patent Warming" in light of the growing number of patent applications it is receiving. At the AIPPI (Association Internationale pour la Protection de la Propriété Intellectuelle) Congress that closed today in Boston, EPO head Alison Brimelow said that the increasing number of patent applications is currently the biggest problem that patent offices face and is slowing down the issue of patents. Source

An article by Jeffrey Steinberger has well said "Before you spend a lot of time an energy creating the next big thing, use a patent search to make sure it hasn't already been done." He has explained the patent understanding and method of searching patent informatin, which can be useful for the entrepreneurs and investors in making strategic decisions. Read full Article

Innography delivers intellectual property business intelligence software as a service that enables companies to better manage, protect and exploit their patent portfolios. By uniquely correlating patent data with key business information, Innography instantly generates visual insights so users can rapidly access and apply meaningful results when engaged in patent licensing, market analysis, competitive intelligence, freedom to operate, invalidation, due diligence and other related activities.

Competitive intelligence for viewing a market landscape, helping in making strategic decions, includes study and filtering by litigation propensity. A query against a specific technology can result in an interesting set of data. To gain even further insight, the ability to filter based on the litigation history of companies could indicate how protective some players in the particular market landscape are or even the market in general. In this case getting to results rapidly is even more difficult, because obtaining the litigation history and ranking companies accordingly is even more difficult, but the value of having litigation pre-correlated allows for very rapid, almost instantaneous results.

For IP licensing, a technology landscape result set can be created using any number of discovery methods such as keywords, common or similar patent classifications, co-citation analysis among the most popular. That landscape can then be filtered based on company revenues of the assignee. For in-licensing a company might be interested in finding smaller companies that have some interesting innovation that might be more amenable to licensing their technology than some larger companies might. For out licensing many companies look for larger companies with a specific gap in their portfolio as a better revenue source. Both of these searches can be accomplished only if the patent landscape result set can be filtered on revenue because patent data has been correlated with company financial data.

Mr. Ryan Rozich is his aricle explained the basics of Technology Intelligence form Patent Landscaping. The Evolution of IP Intelligence The term patent search has been used for quite some time to describe the practice of finding patents that matched specific criteria – the business cases for these ‘searches’ usually revolved around patentability or prior-art searching. The term patent landscaping means looking at broader trends such as if patent activity for a given area is increasing/decreasing, etc. Moving beyond patent landscaping, many IP professionals are now looking to answer broader technology intelligence questions such as “what is my IP position in this market”, “who are my small/large technology competitors”, “what are the legal/market/IP threats in this area”, “who would be a good partner candidate or in/out license target”, “what are the IP/legal/other risks in partnering or acquiring this company”. These questions go deeper than simple patent searching or even patent lands...

Patentest patent searching toolbar ( Patentest Toolbar™ ) was designed for both professional and novice patent searching in mind. The toolbar provides an easy access to three of the most profound free patent databases ( USPTO , esp@cenet and Google Patents ) from one single searchbox. Simply click the 'Download Toolbar' link to install the toolbar and start patent searching for free. In adition to patent searching the toolbar also includes the following free features: * Family & Legal Status reports ( Patentest Legal™ ) * Patent Document Retrieval Utility ( Patentest GetFile™ ) * Direct links to major patent offices worldwide * Patent News

Patents are extremely important when configuring the business strategy of technological companies. There are more and more tools that allow you to download and analyse patents in one way or another. Visualisation is a key tool for the analysis and detection of opportunities that is still used shyly. Patent visualisation is just one more within the possibilities of text mining. Nevertheless, as anyone working in R+D knows, detecting the patents that can prevent us to follow a research line or finding a "hole" where there's nothing patented can be fundamental for the business strategy of a company. Visualisation is vital to open a way through the web of legal text, [sometimes obscure] claims, and the large amount of data that represent the world of patents. We are still an a very preliminar stage in this field.

Search of non-patent lietrature during novelty search, invalidation, landscape, etc. is essential. The following link consists of bunch of websites and journals aiding in locating non-patent lietrature pertaining to medicinal chemistry, Pharmacology and Neurosciences, Biochemistry and Biological Sciences, Protein and Peptide Science,Molecular Modeling and Computational Chemistry, etc.

Technology Portfolio and Market Value Patients and IP - Should We Care? Intellectual Property: The Practical and Legal Fundamentals Inventions on Keyboard Illumination - A TRIZ Based Analysis 'Obvious to Try': A Proper Patentability Standard in the Pharmaceutical Arts? More

A good article by Gianluca Carnabuci. The aritcle states that, the size distribution of the domains of US-patented technological knowledge obeys an exponential law, revealing a disproportionable concentration of progress among larger domains. Mr. Gianluca's analyses suggest that this phenomenon is explained by a combination of two factors. First, domains' trajectories of growth have inherently different potentials. Second, differences in domains' potentials are magnified by a mechanism - domains' self-hybridization - endogenous to the process of knowledge growth. Mr. Gianluca conclude that the observed concentration of progress reflects dynamics of knowledge growth that are more general than the specific case analyzed, and should be factored in investment decisions and policies. Read full article

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Increase your patent efficiency. Aspator helps you search and read patents and patent applications from USPTO and esp@cenet websites much quicker. Aspator helps you read and print out abstracts, claims, drawings and bibliographies of all the patents searched on a single page! Here are some key features of "Aspator": * Read searched patent abstracts, claims, drawings and bibliographies from USPTo and esp@cenet on one single page. * Direct access to esp@cenet and Google Patent Search. * Download PDF of a patent through pat2pdf.org. * Download multiple patents in one single PDF file or in separate PDF files. * Store your search records. Requirements:· Firefox: 1.5 to 3.0. Download Now

The annual conference and exposition in Europe geared to Information Professionals within the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, biomedical, medical and health sciences industries. This conference programme is focused on the role of the Information Professional through all stages of a drug's progression, from discovery research, through pre-clinical assessment, clinical, regulatory, safety, post marekting surveillance, and business and competitor information. Click here to register for Pharma-Bio-Med and sign up for workshops or to access workshop choices on an existing registration

Obviousness is a noun, derived from word obvious meaning easily seen, recognised or understood. The word obvious has originated from the Latin word “obvius” meaning “in the way”. To interpret the doctrine of obviousness it is necessary to first understand the objective of grant of Patent. Object of grant of patent is to encourage scientific research, new technology and industrial progress and for that object exclusive privilege is granted. At the same time before awarding patent for any invention it has to be considered that the invention must be novel, must involve an inventive step and must have industrial application. These requirements are to be strictly followed before a patent could be granted for any invention in any country all over the world. More

Patents are granted to encourage the inventors to disclose their inventions and also to grant them monopolistic right to exploit the invention. The objective of Patent Grant in India is to ensure that the inventions are worked in India on a commercial scale and to the fullest extent without any undue delay. Accordingly, any interested person after expiry of 3 years from grant of patent even though if he is a license under the patent, may make an application to the Controller for grant of compulsory license on the grounds that: (a)The reasonable requirements of the public with respect to the patented invention have not been satisfied; and (b)The patented invention is not available to the public at a reasonable price. (c)The invention is not worked commercially to fullest extent in territory of India. The circumstances constituting "failure to meet the reasonable requirements'' of public in respect of a patent are as follows: (i)Inadequate manufacture in India or failure to ...

Hopefully you realize that before you do much of anything, you need to look at the marketability of your invention. Remember, you don't want to do anything until you have a good feel for whether or not you can actually make some money from your invention. Of course, you can't ever determine with 100% accuracy if you will make money or how much, but you can gain an idea by looking at other products available in the marketplace. So you need to become an expert at products in the marketplace similar to your invention! Once that's done, what's the next step? More

The prosecution of a patent includes the procedures that follow after a regular patent application is filed. The prosecution of a patent application usually includes the first, second and final Office actions and consists of the period between the filing of the application and its issuance or abandonment. For more of an explanation, just keep on reading… In the case of provisional applications, the completed application is just stored for a maximum of one year. In contrast, nonprovisional applications (these are also known as regular applications) are assigned to a specific examiner depending on the subject matter contained within the application (i.e.; computer related, biotechnology, engineering, etc.). The examiner will then review the application and he or she will eventually send the applicant what is called the first Office Action (this can take 14 to 20 months – so don't hold your breath). More

Chemical and pharmaceutical companies protect their investment in research and development and the future of the companies by securing patents on their inventions. Patents help you resist competition. Success or failure of the company often depends on the strength of the patent and the longer the term of the patent, the greater will be its value. A strong patent is one that defines your invention broadly and but at the same time builds in fallback narrow invention. More

Whether you work for a large corporation or are a single entity unto yourself, inventing new products or product enhancements is very difficult work. It takes time, energy, money, intelligence, creativity, motivation, failure, and of course, and sweat. Patent infringement isn't just a financial threat to you, it is an insult to your work and your abilities. It is the adult version of cheating on a test, and it is insulting. Wanting to protect yourself from it is only natural. Patent infringement is one of today's fastest growing white collar, silent crimes and being concerned about it as an inventor is prudent and aptly justified. There are various steps one can take to attempt to protect themselves from it, although the steps may vary significantly depending on where you work and who you work for. If you work for yourself, the simple and most effective method of protecting yourself from patent infringement is to hire a attorney. More

Regardless of the size of your business operation, whether you are a large corporation or a single entity on your own, inventing new product enhancements and new products requires a lot of work. It takes energy, creativity, motivation, intelligence, time, money, and failure. This is why it is important to patent your ideas and protect them with patent laws. This is also why patent infringement is more than just a financial threat - it's insulting your work and your abilities, the equivalent to cheating on an exam - someone steals your ideas and makes them their own. It is important to protect yourself from this which is one of the fastest growing 'white collar' crimes in the United States. There are a few different measures that you can take to protect yourself from this, although these steps may differ significantly depending on where you work, who you work for and the type and size of the business. If you work for yourself the best way to protect yourself is to hire a pat...

There are different types of patent infringement, and of course each type is considered a violation of current patent infringement laws. Despite the fact that most companies have researchers to avoid it, the incident rate of it is increasing. Patent infringement is defined as any type of unauthorized use, manufacturing, or sale of a patented item. Direct patent infringement is the most obvious and the most common form of it. The highest percentage of cases involve the direct kind. In the most basic definition, direct patent infringement means the marketing, sale, or commercial use of an exact patented item or invention that performs substantially the identical function. Indirect patent infringement is categorized into two variations. Indirect patent infringement suggests that there was some amount of either deceit or even accidental patent infringement in the incident. Indirect patent infringement includes infringement by inducement and contributory patent infringement. Patent infringe...

Valuation is an accounting term which means a lump sum of money payable to receive the future benefits of an asset at a particular time. There are three generally accepted accounting theories for valuing assets: market, cost, and income. Market theory values an asset as the present value ascribed to similar assets in an active public market. Cost theory values an asset by the cost of replacing the asset. Income theory values an asset by the present worth of the net anticipated economic benefit of the asset. Can we apply any of these theories to value patents? Click here to read more

Author: Amit Agrawal KPO from India - The new KPO outsourcing destination India has now established as the most preferred KPO (Knowledge Process Outsourcing) destination for the companies around the world. The KPO has advantages of top Indian talent in the fields that require special skills, expertise and knowledge perfections. KPO (Knowledge Process Outsourcing), what is it? KPO is an extension of offshore BPO. It is the high-end activity of the BPO industry and is estimated to have a magnificent growth in the next few years. To processes the demand of advanced knowledge, analytical interpretation and technical skills. For sure, the average KPO employee is expected to have better qualifications, skills and knowledge as compared to his/her BPO counterpart. kind of jobs it covers: Fields of work that the KPO industry includes are intellectual property, patent research, content development, R & D in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, market research, equity research, data research, d...

A good article by Anne Tide There are several points to be taken into account when planning to receive a patent for your invention; and patent analytics imply the basic information when it comes to searching for various patents that have already been obtained by other people. The documented data will be used in order to learn everything about the already existing patents because this is actually the main condition to be applied when determining whether a person is going to receive a patent or not. Some basic issues are to be acknowledged before a person starts to search for the existing papers; for instance, the concept approach should be well defined in order for the search to be successful. Time and money will be thus saved by providing yourself with the necessary combination of terms that will be used in order to describe your own invention. These terms will be used as keywords in order to search for similar ideas that have already been patented in a particular area of interest. You...

In today’s global economy, Intellectual Property (IP) may be a company’s most valuable asset. To best leverage this asset, leading firms are using a tool called Patent Analytics to assess the competitive technology landscape and make strategic decisions about what technologies to invest in, when (and with whom) to partner or license, and which markets to pursue. This presentation, by technology innovation expert Tom Blailock, provides an overview on how to use Patent Analytics including case examples and multiple approaches. More

IP Portfolio Benchmarking service helps you assess the strengths and weaknesses of your patent portfolio against those of your competitors. Our analysis allows you to compare patenting activity which provides insight into competitor's R&D investment and marketing strategy. IP Portfolio Benchmarking can give you confidence that your patenting activity is giving you strength in the market, while assisting you with budgeting for patent prosecution and maintenance fee payments. Key Questions: * Do you know how your patenting activity compares to your key competitors? * Are you confident you hold a position of strength in your portfolio in comparison to your competitors? * How do you justify your expenditures for prosecution and administration to upper management? * Do you know your competitors' trends in R&D expenditures? Value Proposition: * Know your patenting activity versus your competitors * Have confidence that you have strength versus your competitors * Understand co...

Two days Training programs on Patenting System in India and Five days for Patenting Bioscience at NIIPM , Nagpur, India For more information visit NIIPM Website.

Salix Pharmaceuticals , Ltd has announced that Salix Pharmaceuticals, Inc has filed a lawsuit in the US District Court of New Jersey against Novel Laboratories for infringement of the patent protecting Osmoprep tablets . More