Patents as a Source of Competitive Intelligence Jan Comfort Reference Librarian Clemson University

What is Competitive Intelligence? “… the identification of strategically important corporate intelligence (knowledge) needs and the process of resolving those needs through ethical information-gathering, analysis, and the presentation of such analysis to clients (internal or external).” Jim Underwood. Competitive Intelligence. London: Capstone Publishing. 2002. We as librarians generally focus on the information-gathering part, and leave the analysis to the patrons. Learn everything you can about the industry Identify companies in the market Learn about companies in the market Search the appropriate databases for the company/market So why patents?

It is estimated that 80% of information found in patents is unique. Office of Technology Assessment and Forecasting. Eighth Report. Washington, DC: GPO. 1974. Why do you think this is true? One of the requirements for patentability is “absolute novelty.” If something has already been written about, it is no longer novel. Often there are restrictions placed on publication by companies or licensees. But “full disclosure” (by publishing) is a legal requirement for a patent New advances are published in the patent literature well before journal articles Individual inventions might not be important enough on their own to publish. It might take years to document incremental research results, and by then it is not “publishable.” Perhaps the organization has moved on to other areas of research. The value of some patents is economic, not scientific

Patent literature vs. Journal literature Patents Usually no theoretical discussion Different writing style; uses legal terminology Keywords may even be different Will usually give one example with full detail Technology is generally in the early stage Journals Written to document original research as opposed to solving a problem Goes through a review process before being published Research may use the patented process, but research results are what’s important

Sources of Patent Information PTDLs Special resources furnished by the PTDLP Expert Searchers uspto.gov Statistical reports Full-text databases Other multi-subject databases such as LEXIS-NEXIS Scientific Databases Refer to PTDLS whenever you no longer feel comfortable helping a patron. Use uspto databases to find patents, refine results of keyword searches, or to expand one patent into many Use commercial databases for literature searching, background searches on industry or technology or reseach, and to supplement a patent search

Databases with Patent Information Various CSA databases Web of Science SciFinder Scholar Biosis PubMed (nucleotide) Textile Technology Index Lexis/Nexis Pirabase INSPEC Food Science and Technology Abstracts These are only the databases that actually have a separate document type of “Patent”. Patent literature discussed in every scientific database These are only the databases available at Clemson – many available from online vendors such as STN and Dialog

Not all databases will have the same fields, so this might limit too much

Case Study for competitive intelligence Glow in the dark Bracelets

Click on the plus to see which databases have records Tabs for document types

Use Web of Science to do a cited reference search when you already know a patent number

This patent was cited 3 times So articles can lead to patents, and patents can lead to articles

Here is what a patent looks like in a reference list

SciFinder Scholar Next let’s look at SciFinder Scholar. The electronic version of Chemical Abstracts.

Could limit to patents right here

So that was a sample search for chemistry. What about engineering?

Thank you! Slides available at www.ptdla.org Pass out blue handouts