Quote: “Patents do not stifle innovation…”

“Patents do not stifle innovation any more than copyright laws stifle creativity. (…)

Patents ensure the people who put in the time and effort to achieve success are rewarded for that effort, and thereby encourage them to go back to the chalkboard to develop the next big thing. But just as importantly, patents prevent others from reaping all of the benefits of someone else’s endeavors without doing any of the hard/expensive groundwork. ”

Willis, Randall C. Out of order: patently absurd. Drug Discovery News, May 2012. Available from: http://drugdiscoverynews.com/index.php?newsarticle=6127 [Accessed 24th of May 2012]

The TOP 100 most innovative companies

named by Reuters-Thomson, based on a series of patent-related metrics (from DWPI).

Only 2 pure Pharma:

•  Bayer, Germany
• BMS, USA

Read further on:

http://www.top100innovators.com/

Exalead Vs Google!

Intellogist, the best source to benchmark patent sources that I know so far, reviews  Exalead, the French Google, …

“Exalead is a free search platform that has existed for nearly a decade, and it has developed a range of search features that rival, and sometimes exceed, the features of Google search.  The format of advanced search options on Exalead offers a simpler interface than Google’s multiple advanced search forms.  (…)

 Exalead isn’t a replacement for Google (or any subscription non-patent literature database), but the search platform does possess search features that complement Google’s“.

Mornini, Joelle. How is Exalead better than Google, Intellogist, Posted on September 28, 2011.
http://intellogist.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/an-alternative-to-google-search-exalead/

Conference Programme: ICIC 2011

Dr Haxel has launched the programme of the International Conference on Trends for Scientific Information Professionals.

http://haxel.com/icic/2011/programme

Patents Thomson Innovation: well rated by Intellogist

Thomson Innovation, the latest Patent tools by Thomson is well rated by the Intellogist community (in my sense, the best source for patents databases comparison).

http://www.intellogist.com/wiki/Report:Thomson_Innovation/System_Data

The Crème of the Web: introduction to Patents

A few nice resources for non-specialists:

• Patent Research Basics (Dialog): an excellent manual to start with patents. Includes a benchmarking of databases (pp.11-12)
• British Library IP Centre offers several nice guides

• Official Patent Organization guides:
  • IPO
  • EPO
  • WIPO

• Official publications to monitor new patents: the IPO produces Patents Journal, the EPO publishes European Patent Bulletin, and WIPO its PCT Newsletter.

Inspired by:
Janes, Adrian. Selected sources for patent research. FUMSI, September 2010. Online: http://web.fumsi.com/go/article/find/60879

For me, one of the best free sources for non-specialists is:

www.freepatentsonline.com

which is well rated by the experts community Intellogist

Google Scholar announces major improvements

ResourceShelf seems proud to announce major changes in Google Scholar (GS).

• Email alerts are now available
• Syntax has been enhanced to build complex queries
• Alert on new citations to paper
• A disruptive (?) feature was introduced, the automatic query modification: according Google, GS alerts “changes your to get better results (for example, [statistical speech recognition] has been changed to [statistical intitle:”speech recognition“]”. No surprise that Google keeps the secrecy about how query modification works!!!

What GS doesn’t do still:

• Date limits do not work
• RSS feeds are not yet available
• List of indexed journals is not published
• Updating policies are not clear

A Patent Specialists community

Once registered (it is free of charge), Intellogist gives you an access to a wealth of resources: white papers, list of links, a nice tool to compare patent search systems, etc.

wonderful…

http://www.intellogist.com/wiki/Main_Page

Nice site: FreePatentsOnline

FreePatentsOnline search engine is one of the most powerful, fastest and easiest patent search engines on the web.

The search allows advanced search techniques such as word stemming, proximity searching, relevancy ranking and search term weighting to help you find exactly what you are looking for.

And, personal account features let you organize, annotate and share documents, and Alerts let you instantly be notified when new documents of interest are published.

My advise: don’t use the the basic form on the homepage (because it searches only on US patents), go directly on advanced search.

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/

Patents are under-used

“Why do scientists not use the vast technical information disclosed in patent literature?” asked a Patent attorney in the Biotech & Pharma Professionnals Network at Linked-In.

” (…) scientists do not explore the patent literature. The risk of reinventing the wheel is therefore very high, and many valuable man-hours are lost. About 80% of scientific technical information disclosed in patents is not disclosed elsewhere. (…) What can we do to change the perception that patent literature is not just legal documents?”

Amongst comments, ones suggested:

• lack of trainings during scientist’s education
• technical and legal jargon as a barrier
• doubts on the reliability (not peer-reviewed; too much information, like numerous formulations, to protect the perimeter
• disclosed information is minimal because of confidentiality risks
• freedom of information is very new on this field and there is not yet a medline-like database to cover the worlwide information