PIUG 2012 Annual Conference
An International Conference for Patent Information Professionals

View From a Mile High –
Best Practices in Analysis and Visualization of Patent Information

Overview | Program | Conference Materials (PIUG members only) | Sponsors
Workshops | Brian Stockdale Award

Saturday April 28 – Thursday May 3, 2012

Denver Hilton City Center
(formerly Denver Marriott City Center)
1701 California Street
Denver, Colorado 80202
+1-303-297-1300

Conference Program

Conference Events

Registration covers all these conference events:

• Speakers Dinner (by invitation only; sponsored by PIUG) – Saturday evening, April 28, 7:00pm
• PIUG Business Meeting – Sunday afternoon, April 29, 4:00-5:30pm
• First-Time Attendees Reception – Sunday evening, April 29, 6:15-7:00pm
• Welcome Reception sponsored by PIUG – Sunday evening, April 29, 7:00-9:00pm
• PIUG Gala Dinner and Celebration of IPI Award Recipient Stephen Adams – Monday night, April 30, 7:00pm
• Conference breakfasts, lunches, and refreshments during meeting breaks – Monday-Wednesday, April 30-May 2
• PIUG Committee Meetings – Tuesday May 1, time and locations to be determined by committee members.

Early-bird registration closes March 24, 2012. The deadline for Advanced Registration closes Friday, April 22, 2011. On-site registration may be possible if space is available. See full details on the Registration page.

In addition, workshops will be held on Saturday April 28, Sunday April 29, and Thursday, May 3. Details to be announced.

Technical Session – Monday to Wednesday

Conference Abstracts and Biographies

Keynote Presentation: "Why I Hate Patents"

Abstract

The title of this presentation should be "Why I Hate Software and Business Method Patents," since I have no opinion on biotech, medical, physical science, material invention and new lawnmower technology. When dealing with entrepreneurs you are talking about innovation and the question is whether there is a correlation between innovation and patents. Recent studies indicate that there is no correlation between these items or it is unclear at best. There are also social considerations that come into play when discussing the ecosystem involving patents and their enforcement. There are real ramifications to these considerations and their impacts on both large companies and entrepreneurs. This presentation will review the current situation and make some suggestions on how the situation can be improved in the future.

Jason Mendelson, Keynote speaker
Managing Director
Foundry Group

Biography

Jason is a Managing Director of the Foundry Group, a venture capital firm focused on making investments in early-stage information technology, Internet and software startups. The Foundry Group is located in Boulder, CO and has invested in many promising startup companies including Zynga, Memeo, Pogoplug and Cheezburger.com.

Jason has over a dozen years of experience in the venture capital and technology industries in a multitude of investing, operational and engineering roles. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, Jason was a Managing Director and General Counsel for Mobius Venture Capital, where he also acted as its chief administrative partner overseeing all operations of the firm.

He currently serves on the board of directors of Attachments.me, Brightleaf, Next Big Sound, Oblong, Occipital, Openspace, Organic MotionSifteok, and Urban Airship for Foundry Group.

Prior to his involvement with Mobius Venture Capital, Jason was an attorney with Cooley LLP, where he practiced corporate and securities law with an emphasis on representation of emerging companies in private and public financings, mergers and acquisitions. As an attorney, Jason has consummated over $2 billion of venture capital investments, $5 billion in mergers and has extensive experience in fund formation, employment law and general litigation, serving as an expert witness in these related fields.

Jason is an avid participant in the discussion around patents as they relate to software and entrepreneurial endeavors as well as co-author of Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist, a definitive guide to venture financings. The book is for anyone who wants the insider's guide to raising money, negotiating deals, and to know what really makes venture capitalists tick.

Enabling New Search and Discovery via In-line Tagging of Patent Full Text

Abstract

The combined technologies of text analytics and name-to-structure conversions for reading and processing molecular structures derived from the text of patents provide researchers the ability to build large databases of structures and derive important relationships previously inaccessible, a capability important to discovery and innovation. Our previous work took this approach to produce chemical structures used as input for subsequent applications, rendering the scientific and patent literature searchable by structure/substructure programs. We now report the additional ability to detect, normalize, and replace chemical names in patents with unique identifiers (InChiKeys) and then index the combined text and embedded InChiKeys using SOLR, a Lucene-based full text indexing / search engine.

The resulting index supports Boolean search combinations of chemical compounds and regular text words and phrases. It also supports batch and proximity searches.

The net result is that we can now perform searches for exact chemical structures or even unspecified chemical structures within a specified context. We are currently working on extending this technique to entities other then chemicals such as diseases, drug targets, etc. We will demonstrate how this enables new ways to search and exploit the patent corpus.

Stephen Boyer
Thomas Griffin
Alfredo Alba
Su Yan
Ying Chen
W. Scott Spangler
W. Eric Louie
W. Jeff Kreulen
IBM Almaden Research Center

Biography

Stephen Kane Boyer Ph. D. is a researcher in the interdisciplinary space of chemistry and computer science. He pioneered the use of computers to automatically curate scientific literature and patents, expanding for the scientific community their understanding and utility of published information in medicine, the physical sciences and intellectual property.

Dr. Boyer's early work as a synthetic chemist in the pharmaceutical sector provided the foundation for his insight into molecular structure-property correlations, particularly in the field of health and life sciences. His best-known commercialized pharmaceutical syntheses include drugs for the treatment of infection and cardiovascular disease. At Ciba-Geigy in Switzerland, he led the team that developed a commercial synthesis for Cefroxadine, an oral cephalosporin antibiotic, and contributed to the commercial synthesis of Benazepril, an angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor for the treatment of hypertension. His hands-on familiarity with creating molecules for bioactivity motivated his subsequent work in the creation of accessible and cross reference-able molecular databases.

Acknowledged as an influential leader in facilitating access to scientific information and patents, Dr. Boyer was instrumental in launching one of the world's first public patent websites: the IBM Patent Server (now Delphion of Thomson Reuters). This multi-year effort to aggregate world intellectual property into a single database freely available on the Internet was a revolutionary act in its time and resulted in one of the largest and most successful publicly available Internet sites. This pivotal event impacted both the scientific and intellectual property (IP) communities, and positioned Dr. Boyer as an advisor to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for the creation of WIPO-Net, a United Nations initiative to openly provide IP resources to international communities inclusive of third-world countries. In this capacity he continues to lecture on technical issues and draft proposals for improving international access to intellectual property.

More recently, Dr. Boyer initiated a collaboration of pharmaceutical industry leaders and international governmental organizations to explore his vision of enhanced access and curation of scientific information. This collaboration has formed the basis of a new commercial offering for IBM and has resulted in a large and significant donation of molecular content (~ 2 million molecular structures) to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The impact of providing this aggregation of molecular data to the public will be felt internationally in business, academic and technical sectors. Dr. Boyer combines ten years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry (Ciba-Geigy / Novartis) with 25 years working in numerous technical and management capacities at IBM. He has authored numerous publications and patents in the areas of new drug syntheses and text- and image-analytics. He holds a B.A. from Temple University in Philadelphia and a Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from Tufts University in Massachusetts. He is married and has two children.

Strategic Analysis of Large Portfolios Using Patent Quality and Relevance Statistics

Abstract

Strategic large portfolio analysis (>500 patents) presents unique challenges. The purpose of the strategic analysis is traditionally for R&D return-on-investment, acquisition, spin-out, monetization, or litigation. The main obstacles are ascertaining proper "natural" clusters within a portfolio, and finding best quality IP assets within each class, without the benefit of reading key claims and without full understanding of the underlying technologies, due to time and cost constraints. A method is proposed utilizing statistical assessment of patent quality, and patent relevance based on citational analysis. Highest quality patents are selected automatically and name matched to latest assignees. The method presents results in a three dimensional visual landscape, showing "natural" clusters by assignee, size of only the relevant subsets of a portfolio for each assignee, quality assessment of the clusters relative to each other, and relatedness/relevance of the different clusters.

Dr. Elvir Causevic
Ocean Tomo

Biography

Dr. Elvir Causevic leads Ocean Tomo's Strategic Advisory Services practice. He advises innovative enterprises on cost-effective strategic management of their intellectual assets, and creates monetization and transaction strategies for maximum value creation. Prior to Ocean Tomo, over the past 18 years he founded and ran several industrial, medical, and high technology companies. He received significant funding from the DoD, NIH, and the EU, and raised over $50 million dollars in premier private venture capital for his businesses and products, two of which were ultimately acquired by Fortune 500s.

Dr. Causevic built blocking IP portfolios in various fields, and executed many profitable IP transactions. He served as a technical expert in patent litigations, including CAFC and USPTO interference proceedings, including a medical device case settling at $330 million. Over the years, Dr. Causevic led a series of high visibility innovation and IP projects and collaborations with small and medium enterprises, global corporations, universities, NIST, NASA, DoE-NREL, and the OECD.

Dr. Causevic has over 20 patents and patent applications, and numerous scientific publications. He began his academic career as a "J.W. Gibbs Assistant Professor of Applied Mathematics" at Yale University, followed by other academic appointments in engineering and graduate business/economics programs. He has been an invited speaker on innovation for national and corporate audiences (at the U.S. Senate, IBM Research, Microsoft Research, IEEE, OECD, etc.) and has appeared in leading business media in the U.S. and internationally.

Dr. Causevic holds B.S., M.S. and Doctor of Science degrees in electrical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, and is a Senior IEEE member with active technical committee and peer-review engagements.

Highly Scalable Techniques for Document to Document Comparison

Abstract

The Interllective is innovating tools for document-based search. In this talk, we will discuss our experiences developing novel text analysis techniques for massive data sets. The ultimate result is a set of highly scalable algorithms for document to document comparison. We will discuss an application of these algorithms which can quickly analyze an arbitrary set of XML documents (~15,000 in a manner of minutes), identifying relationships between every record in the set. Examples from patent and academic research will be discussed, including an unconstrained metadata analysis (assignee to assignee, author to author relationships, etc).

Brian Cleary
The Interllective, Inc.

Biography

Brian graduated from Caltech with degrees in Biology (Neuroscience) and Finance. Before co-founding The Interllective he worked in finance, most recently running a highly successful algorithmic trading group.

The Role of Agile Text Mining in Patent Search and Analysis

Abstract

In recent years there has been rapid growth in the use of automated Natural Language Processing (NLP) to efficiently find and extract data from large document collections. This talk discusses how agile text mining differs from traditional keyword search, and how it can be used for patent search and analysis in a variety of ways, including:

1. exploitation of a range of capabilities such as NLP, regular expressions and terminologies to identify the most relevant documents and signpost key information within them
2. creation of better informed search strategies, including derivation of vocabularies from the data
3. rule-based categorization of documents
4. extraction of information in a standardized, structured format to summarize information across multiple documents, and to connect to other data sources

The talk will cover applications including intellectual property search, scientific knowledge extraction and competitive intelligence.

David Milward*
Chief Technology Officer
Linguamatics Ltd.

Jeffrey Nauss
Linguamatics

Biography

David is the Chief Technology Officer of Linguamatics. He has over 20 years' experience of product development, consultancy and research in natural language processing. He is a founder of Linguamatics and pioneer of interactive information extraction. He has been applying text mining to application areas such as the life sciences for many years, initially as a Senior Computer Scientist at SRI International. David has a PhD from the University of Cambridge and was a researcher and lecturer at the University of Edinburgh. He has published in the areas of information extraction, spoken dialogue, parsing, syntax and semantics.

Landscaping Beyond Analysis and Visualization: Strategic Business Integration

Abstract

In the patent information world, landscaping is often regarded as gathering, assessing and visualizing data. While some business leaders appreciate a well presented visualization of patent and other technology information, for many organizations it becomes an academic exercise: something interesting which has limited relation to the business' strategic planning and execution processes such as technology roadmapping, business case evaluation, product life cycle planning, etc.

In ordinary conversation, the term landscaping often brings to mind substantive actions beyond assessing and visualizing. For example, a landscape architect may gather information about an estate to be landscaped: its surroundings, climate, seasons, soil, water, facilities, personnel, and so forth. She may then assess the data and prepares visualizations (2D layouts, 3D models and renderings, timelines, etc.) which are included in plans which she presents to the property owner. The property owner then reviews the plans, proposes alterations if needed, and allocates resources to execute the plans. Landscaping activities such as planting, watering, monitoring, pruning, etc., are carried out in a way that the value of the property owner's estate is enhanced by a beautiful, well designed, living, growing landscape.

By expanding the intellectual property landscaping metaphor to encompass this more holistic perspective, one can integrate the appropriate tools and workflow to make intellectual property landscaping an integrated dynamic component of the working business strategy

The use of landscaping tools which include the ability to use custom fields facilitates the process of active landscaping for growth because actionable information can be searched, monitored, analyzed, visualized and presented in a way that is meaningful to company leaders across various functions.

We present examples that illustrate key elements and workflow implementations that are being used to execute dynamic IP landscaping in ways that integrate IP and business strategy.

Tom Briscoe
Dako

Ric Snead
Product Specialist and Trainer
Thomson Reuters

Biographies

Tom Briscoe is Scientific Director for Technology and IP at Dako, a company that supplies diagnostic assays and instruments to clinical pathology laboratories. He has BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering from Utah State University, an MBA from University of Denver, and is a registered US patent agent. Tom chairs Dako's Scouting and Innovation Management team which initially assess technology related ideas submitted internally or through Dako's open innovation outreach.

Ric Snead is a Product Specialist with the IP Solutions division of Thomson Reuters. He specializes in helping clients with research, tools and processes for deriving value from intellectual property assets. His support ranges from helping clients on a daily bases with their patent search needs to holding multi-day workshops on patent research and analytics. To this role he draws from his experience as a patent liaison, consultant and intellectual property researcher. Ric has in-depth knowledge of international patent information and the Derwent World Patents Index and is an expert with IP analytics tools such as Themescape and Thomson Data Analyzer. Ric has 19 years experience in the online industry. He has a biomedical background and 12 years of R&D experience in both the government and industry sector. He is a U.S. Patent Agent with an M.S. in biochemistry from Clemson University. Prior employers include the National Cancer Institute, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Cetus Corporation, Univ of Calif Berkeley Extension and the law firm of Townsend and Townsend and Crew (now Kilpatrick, Townsend and Stockton).

If You Can’t Use It, Why Do It? Tailoring Client-Specific IP Analysis & Visualization

Abstract

When it comes to patent analysis and visualization, analysts are often required to answer "big questions" which often necessitate "big answers." This can conflict with end-user client expectations that putting the analyst into the equation will lead to "bite size" answers. In fact, patent analysis and visualization results are often long, dense and confusing to non-experts who must then use the information in subsequent deliverables.

In order for end-user clients to utilize the tremendous amount of information usually resulting from these analyses it is important to present the final information in an appropriate visual. Interestingly, visualizations shared with clients are often the same as visualizations used by the analysts. However, this is not always the most effective way to make a client comfortable or to enable downstream use/sharing of resulting insights.

In this presentation, participants will learn how to tailor the results of an analysis into visualized deliverables that are client-specific, situationally adjustable, and tailored to the type of end-user audience (e.g., legal, technical or business). Specific analysis and visualization examples, proven to be useful to end-user clients, will be presented related to: competitive landscaping, white space analysis, partner identification, technology scouting, freedom to operate and IP valuation. From this presentation, participants will take away best practices and near-term techniques in order better tailor outputs - regardless of data source and/or visualization package - for client- and event-specific outputs.

KEY TAKE-AWAYS

• Begin with the end in mind - design of the deliverable that gets USED is as important as design of the search & analysis that you DO
• Client-facing visualizations are not always effective if it they are the same as the analyst's visualization - editing makes a big difference
• Analysis and visualizations can be better organized for client consumption - and even starting today you can use common desktop and online tools to better communicate with clients

Barry Brager
Managing Partner
Perception Partners, Inc.

Biography

Barry Brager is a Certified Licensing Professional (CLP) and the Founder and Managing Partner of Perception Partners®. He brings a unique combination of expertise in analytics and marketing to the firm's diverse teams, tools and techniques. In his role, Barry helps clients fully leverage innovation and intellectual property with technology investment, business development and transactional Solution Suites that have supported decisions related to billions in financial transactions.

Barry is also the Chief Executive Officer of Starpound Corporation. Starpound is an IP management company that licenses technology to turn mobile phones into remote control devices. Barry holds four patents and others pending related to these endeavors.

Barry is recognized as a leader in the IP industry. In 2009, 2010 and again in 2011, Barry was named one of the world's Leading IP Strategists in the global IAM Strategy 250, published by IAM Magazine. In 2008, he completed his second term as Small Business Committee Chair of the Intellectual Property Owners Association based in Washington D.C. He also co-chaired the Licensing Executives Society USA-Canada Annual Meeting in 2008. Further, he is a member of the Strategic Planning Committee of the Patent Information Users Group. Barry is a frequent speaker on IP strategy, valuation and the links between patent intelligence and competitive advantage.

Barry is also a skilled trainer, having taught hundreds of students software and business skills in corporate and academic environments. In addition, he is an award-wining graphic designer.

Barry graduated with a B.F.A. from Temple University, and subsequently completed Emory University's top 10 globally-ranked Executive MBA program, graduating Beta Gamma Sigma and first in his class.

Patent Landscape for Large Scale Biological Sequence Comparisons

Abstract

With the increase use of Next Generation Sequencing technologies, agrochemical and biotechnology companies have expressed an urgent need for Intellectual Property high-volume scanning of thousands of biological sequences. Fearing potential early problems as well as wanting to be first to patent sequences, those companies have asked us to develop algorithms to solve their FTO and patentability needs.

We will present how tens of thousands of freshly produced biological sequences can be compared to the hundreds of millions of patent sequences available in our databases in a matter of hours. How those millions of results can be viewed and quickly assessed by IP specialists, in view of making the appropriate decisions early in the process.

Denis Bayada
GenomeQuest, Inc.

Biography

Dr. Bayada is a senior field application scientist at GenomeQuest, applying his extensive chemoinformatics and genomics-based drug discovery experience to the solution of problems faced by research organizations in IP as well as molecular biology.

Dr. Bayada's PhD. in Chemistry centered on the computational analysis of molecules, an experience he was able to leverage as a senior researcher at NV Organon/Akzo Nobel, where he was an integral member of their early bioinformatics team. Dr. Bayada was also a senior researcher at the French national sequencing center, Genoscope/CEA where his work focused on the sequencing and analysis of bacterial DNA.

With an extensive background in chemoinformatics and genomics-based drug discovery spanning nearly two decades, Dr. Bayada transforms customer feedback into effective workflow refinements, especially in variant detection and IP.

Landscape Analysis of Patent Space Based on Biological/Chemical Entities

Abstract

Finding biological and chemical entities in patent literature is just the first step in extracting useful information for drug discovery. Figuring out what it means is the interesting part. This is where Exploratory Analytics comes into play. In our approach to Landscape Analysis using Cotables, we utilize statistical tests to find the interesting relationships between drugs, targets, and diseases. These sortable, drillable tables allow the user to discover and investigate a large swath of patent literature in a short period of time. In this talk we describe our unique approach to Patent Landscape Analysis and provide real world customer examples of how this approach can be used in practice to aid the process of drug repurposing and discovery.

W. Scott Spangler
IBM Almaden Research Center

Biography

Scott Spangler is a Senior Technical Staff Member, Manager, and Master Inventor at the IBM Almaden Research Center. He has been doing knowledge base and data mining research for the past 20 years. Since coming to IBM in 1996, Scott has developed software components for data visualization and text mining, which are available through eClassifier, Business Insights Workbench, COBRA, and SIIP service offerings. Scott holds a Bachelors in Math from MIT and a Master in Computer Science from the University of Texas. Scott holds 31 patents and has authored numerous publications. Among his many publications include a book entitled, Mining the Talk: Unlocking the Business Value in Unstructured Information.

Inherent Document Value

Abstract

As patent professionals, we are not short on tools and services that help with our quest for relevant data, but if the amount of relevant data is overwhelming, how are we able to address all of it within an acceptable timeframe for fear of missing out on "The One"?

Patentics.com has developed an unparalleled and powerful solution that calculates mathematical models to represent the underlying concepts within each document and then uses these models to determine document similarity within any large set of documents to determine value and importance of a subset. In short, we are culling the valuable documents from the not-so-valuable documents, allowing our users to direct their valuable and finite time and attention to the selected ones.

We have used several strategies to validate our method and to calculate acceptable, quantifiable metrics. We will use patent pools such as the DVD6C and MPEG-LA as a group of known high quality patents against which we can measure our calculated groups, and we will use traditional information retrieval metrics such as precision and recall to quantify how well our method performs. We will also use some traditional patent "value" metrics (as outlined in Allison, et al.'s paper on Valuable Patents) such as number of citations received and made to further quantify and analyze our results. Using patent pools, our results show an overwhelming overlap and using citations received and made, our results also show high correlation.

From our analysis, our algorithm is calculating a document's intrinsic value and exposing this value to the user. The user can then proceed with a more guided approach on evaluating his documents, helping him divide and conquer massive amounts of patent data into more manageable chunks.

Jenny Qiu
Patentics.com

Biography

Jenny Qiu is the director of business development for Patentics.com. Previously, a majority of her experience has been in search and big data computations, with previous technical and product roles at Yahoo! Inc. within their search marketing advertising systems and ad ranking and relevance teams. She has also worked extensively with other search related venture-backed startups and companies within Silicon Valley. She graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science.

Use of Network Patent Analysis for Advanced Analysis of Patent Data

Abstract

Network Patent Analysis (NPA) is the concept of linking patents in a given technology area by their citation linkages, and then reducing and focusing this network so that the 'key' (most connected) patents are identified and groups together into clusters of similar subject matter. NPA can be distinguished from other commonly used patent analysis methods that either group patents based on semantic analysis, or rank patents based on their number of forward citations and other bibliometric parameters. In contrast, NPA both groups and ranks patents, and can display results in a visually intuitive patent landscape based on citation connections.

Over the last few years, NPA has undergone significant development. While the insight that can be gained from patent landscapes remains useful, recent developments have focused on using the underlying data in the NPA plots to show technology developments, including predicting up-and-coming technologies, quantifying the rate of technology development, and providing a unique perspective on patent thickets, all in a statistically rigorous manner. This presentation will discuss this advanced analysis, referencing published NPA studies in the areas of hybrid cars, smartphones, and Alzheimer's treatments.

Mike Lloyd*
Consultant
Griffith Hack

Doris Spielthenner
Managing Director
Ambercite

George Mokdsi
Information Services Manager
Griffith Hack

Biography

Presenter Mike Lloyd from Griffith Hack brings extensive knowledge and experience of IP management and more traditional forms of patent analysis to help apply NPA™ patent analysis for the benefit of clients. Originally from New Zealand, Mike has a background in chemical engineering and has studied and worked in Scandinavia. Mike first developed an interest in patent data when working as a research scientist, and deepened this interest when working as an IP manager. Mike has published in the areas of chemical engineering, patent management, the value of patents and the use of patent data in a wide range of publications and forums, including the international journals Les Nouvelles, and Managing Intellectual Property. Prior to working with NPA™, Mike had applied more traditional patent analysis techniques for business purposes, and this background made Mike a keen adopter and promoter of the benefits of NPA™ patent analysis once it become available.

Doris Spielthenner developed NPA™ patent analysis after recognising the potential to identify key patents and companies through a systematic analysis of their citation linkages. Doris grew up in Austria, and got interested in network analysis shortly after completing her Master degrees in communications and international business. Besides unlocking the hidden potential of patent data, Doris has also worked in business relationship analysis for a range of business sectors including the pharmaceutical, law enforcement, and infrastructure tendering in Europe, the United States and Australia. As a pioneer in the field of relationship analysis Doris has published in a number of business journals, including the Pharmaceutical Executive, the Intellectual Property Magazine and Nature Biotechnology. Doris has also invented the concept for a reality TV series, based on social networks which has been shown in Germany and Austria. Doris was a founding partner of FAS.research Austria and it's US subsidiary, before joining PricewaterhouseCoopers, where she advises on customer analytics. Besides working with all types of data, Doris likes to surf on the Australian and Indonesian coastlines.

George Mokdsi has been a patent searcher since graduating with a PhD in organic chemistry in 2000. He is experienced in searching many commercial and publicly available patent databases. He conducts searches in all technology fields and specialises in chemical structure and biosequence searching. He has been involved in researching the effectiveness and limitations of various search systems. George joined the Griffith Hack Searching Team in 2005 and is currently involved in developing Griffith Hack's in-house custom built search management system and advanced patent analytic tools.

From Map-making to Exploration: Navigating Patent Landscapes at the Speed of Thought

Abstract

Historically, patent informatics has been used to create maps that answer known business questions like 'how does our patent portfolio stack up to our top competitors?' Because analysts knew what questions they set out to answer, they had the luxury of planning their search strategy, gathering data, then cleansing, synthesizing and visualizing the results. Today, the increasing complexity of business issues surrounding patents has shifted the analysts role from a map-maker to an explorer (with a need to know what they don't know) - and the traditional, multi-step processes are becoming too cumbersome to support iterative exploration and discovery. This workshop will discuss the need for real-time exploration, real life applications/scenarios (i.e. competitive trend analysis), and using two platforms for demonstration. Demonstrations will include workflows of multi-dimensional patent exploration, allowing the user to not only answer questions, but drill into those answers from many directions in a single, unified workflow.

Tyron Stading
Founder and Chief Technology Officer
Innography, Inc.

Biography

Tyron Stading founded Innography in 2006 with a vision of redefining the intellectual property research landscape. Prior to Innography, Tyron was an IBM worldwide industry solutions manager in the telecommunications and utilities sectors, and worked at startups focused on mobile communications and network security. He has published multiple research papers and filed over three dozen patents. Tyron has a BS in Computer Science from Stanford University and an MS in Technology Commercialization from The University of Texas at Austin.

Visualizing Innovation Networks for Competitive Advantage

Abstract

With patent filings greater than 60 million worldwide and the increasing multidisciplinary nature of technology development, the necessity of techniques to manage, visualize and extract competitive knowledge from large datasets is increasingly important. Global innovation trends in specific technology areas can be visualized by mining large datasets for growth trends, technology leadership and to visualize the collaborative and competitive characteristics of key players.

In this session I will illustrate visualization techniques to identify and understand relationships between key players in a given technology space. By leveraging the relational nature of patent data, the evolution of a company and competitors technology can be visualized. Similar techniques can also be applied to literature data helping to further reveal a competitor's innovation network.

Nicole Quenneville
The Boston Consulting Group

Biography

Nicole Quenneville is an Analyst at The Boston Consulting Group, specializing in the topic of Intellectual Property and Networks in the Strategy Practice.

Prior to BCG, Nicole worked as a Technology Transfer Officer at the University-Industry Liaison Office (UILO), at the University of British Columbia (UBC) where she supported the protection and commercialization of life science innovation. In an extension of this role, Nicole helped to manage the IP portfolio and business development strategy of a new UBC-based center of excellence working to develop biomarkers (molecular diagnostics and predictors) for heart, lung and kidney failure.

Nicole earned her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from UBC in 2009. Her research applied cross-disciplinary network analysis techniques to molecular studies of cellular transport pathways.

Patent Analysis and Visualization: Today's Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

Patent analysis is not a simple process. It is a complex procedure that incorporates a variety of different mathematical, statistical, and algorithmic techniques many of which are still evolving. Beyond the math, the process also involves the human element through visualization and U/I. This presentation outlines some the key research area used by the developers of patent analysis tools. It also addresses the limitations of current techniques as well as the opportunities presented by emerging areas of research. The goal of the presentation is to help the audience sort out what is and is not possible with today's patent analysis software and to suggest some of the prospects the future might hold.

Nils Newman
Search Technology, Inc.

Biography

Nils Newman is the Director of New Business Development at Search Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. For nearly two decades, Mr. Newman has worked on the development of analytical tools to assist in the management of technology. His work focuses on the use of bibliographic and patent information in research evaluation, competitive intelligence, and strategic planning. Mr. Newman has a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering and an MS in Technology and Science Policy from Georgia Tech. In his spare time, he is pursuing a PhD in Economics from UNU-MERIT at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands studying the economics of technical change.

Micro Level Patent Analysis and Visualization of Sequence Data

Abstract

Sequence information is dispersed amongst different kind of sources. Public database like NCBI, EMBL, and DDBJ host scientific publication information, whereas patent office databases and commercial patent databases host patent information.

Praguna Singh Sambyal
Ashish Nawani
Evalueserve

Biography

Ashish Nawani is an Engagement Manager with Evalueserve. She is also a registered Indian Patent Agent. She set up the Healthcare practice within the IP group of Evalueserve and was leading it till 2006, when she relocated to the US to support in a more client interfacing roles. She holds and Masters degree in Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology from IIT Delhi.

Beyond the Search Engine: Using Text Mining and Visualization to Explore and Organize Large Patent Document Sets

Abstract

Perhaps the greatest challenge faced by patent professionals is the shear volume of patent documentation that they need to review as part of their best practices. During a workflow analysis of standard patent searches we estimated that upwards of 70% of a patent searchers time was spent reading patent documents: titles, abstracts, drawings, independent claims, etc. A large part of this document review process simply focuses on answering one question: is this document relevant or not? Imagine teaching your personal computer to answer this question. Imagine teaching your computer to organize documents based on your specific areas of interest? And wouldn't it be nice if you could actually understand how your computer accomplishes this? We will begin to unveil the black arts of text mining and data visualization by looking at Treparel's KMX Patent Analytics solution -- not just looking at what it does but also how it works. We will demonstrate how personal tools like KMX can improve productivity while cultivating a deeper understanding of modern information retrieval tools.

Michael Baycroft
IFI CLAIMS Patents Services

Biography

Mike is the founder and CEO of Fairview Research, LLC that acquired IFI CLAIMS Patent Services in 2010. He founded Fairview in 2006 after leaving Thomson Scientific where he was VP of Corporate Technology Solutions. Mike joined Thomson Scientific through the acquisition of Information Holdings Inc. (IHI) in 2004. He joined MicroPatent in 1994 where he led the development of MicroPatent's internet products including PatentWeb, Aureka, and Trademark.com. Mike and his team at IFI are actively promoting CLAIMS Directundefinedan open data platform and web service providing access to the IFI CLAIMS Global Patent database.

Patent Office Updates

Abstract

Marla Grossman, Esq.
Coalition for Patent and Trademark Dissemination

Biography

Marla Grossman is Executive Director of the Coalition for Patent and Trademark Information Dissemination - a coalition of information services and workflow solution providers that offer value-added patent and trademark information services. Coalition member company services enable patent and trademark applicants to find and make available the most relevant information related to their claimed inventions and marks through data enhancements and state of the art search tools.

Having worked on patent issues for two decades, Ms. Grossman serves as a Partner at the American Continental Group (ACG) where she represents the Coalition and other clients before the federal government. She has been called "The Influencer" by I AM Modern Magazine and one of the DC area's "Most Influential Business Women" by the Washington Business Journal.

Ms. Grossman graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School and summa cum laude from Yale University.

Case Law Update and Changes to the Board

Abstract

This paper covers significant new U.S. patent case law from 2011 to date, and also changes to the Jurisdiction and proceedings before the Board resulting from passage of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act.

Rick Neifeld
Neifeld IP Law, PC

Biography

Rick Neifeld has a BS in physics and a BA in mathematics from University of Rochester, a Ph.D. in Physics from Rutgers University, and a law degree from George Washington University. Rick is a patent attorney and the founder of Neifeld IP Law, PC, which focuses on USPTO interference and related Board inter partes proceedings, and patent and trademark prosecution in the USPTO and abroad. Rick is also a former chair of the Interference Committee of the AIPLA, active in the USPTO inter partes proceedings bar, and former vice-chair of the AIPLA PCT Issues committee. He is widely published on patent law issues many of which appear on his firm's web site,

CPC: EPO and USPTO's Joint Cooperative Patent Classification System

Abstract

The EPO and USPTO are cooperating on a new, bilateral classification system, the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC). In October 2010, the USPTO and the EPO entered into an agreement to explore the possibility of jointly developing an IPC-based classification system in an effort to advance harmonization of the various classification systems used in the major IP offices throughout the world. The ultimate goal of CPC is to create a system that will be a large step toward CHC, the Common Hybrid Classification.

Jerry Lorengo
USPTO

Biography

Jerry Lorengo is currently Co-Program Coordinator for CPC at the USPTO where he shares responsibility for the implementation of CPC within the USPTO. Jerry joined the USPTO as an Examiner in 1996 and has served since 2005 as a Supervisory Patent Examiner in the Chemical and Materials Engineering Technology Center. Jerry holds degrees in Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering from the University of Nevada's Mackay School of Mines as well as a law degree from Catholic University's Columbus School of Law.

Open Data: A Quest for the Holy Grail or a Wild Goose Chase?

Abstract

Will "open data" change patent searching? When President Obama took office, his first action was to issue a memorandum on "Transparency and Open Government", stating, " ... my Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use." Rapidly after this, the US government launched its open data platform, data.gov.

The UK followed immediately, creating data.gov.uk, in an initiative backed by the Prime Minister. Today, many countries, regions, companies and international organisations have data platforms. The EPO has data.epo.org.

This talk will take a look at the open data scene and examine how it will influence patent searching and patent analysis. The principles of open data include thorny issues like pricing and licensing. Will patent offices have to rethink their patent information policies? One of the biggest questions will be the one of standardisation and interlinking of data. Linked data is the Holy Grail of open data proponents. Is this the opportunity we've been waiting for to link patent data to, say, company data, financial data, economic data and research data?

Daniel Shalloe
Head of section, Promotion and Training
EPO Vienna

Biography

Daniel Shalloe joined the European Patent Office in September 1989 as a search examiner, having completed a degree in Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College, London two years previously. In October 1991, he moved to the EPO's newly created Vienna sub-office, specialising in patent information. Since 1991, he has been editor-in-chief of EPIDOS News and a leading member of the organising team for the EPO Patent Information Conference.

Information Resources of the Eurasian Patent Office (EAPO)

Abstract

1. Information about the Eurasian Patent Organization (EAPO), brief statistical data.
2. Review of EAPO information resources.
3. EAPO web-portal.
4. Publication server.
5. EAPATIS - contents of databases, search possibilities.
6. EAPO Information Services Portal.
7. EAPO-ONLINE System.

Khabibullo Fayazov
EAPO

Biography

EPO’s Role from Raw Data to User Insight

Abstract

The EPO is a well known supplier of patent raw data and search engines to identify small numbers of highly relevant documents. Its databases were conceived for high quality patent searching, but not for statistical analysis. This requires data models and formats than can be easily linked with other data and loaded into other tools.

The EPO stood up to the challenge and developed the PATSTAT database that has since become established as the most important database for patent statistics - and the EPO's best selling database. Used by e.g. OECD, Eurostat and worldwide leading scientific research institutes it is an example how the needs for analysis and visualisation can be met by reformatting raw data into an easily loadable table structure.

The presentation will describe what the EPO did and why PATSTAT is different to patent databases designed for searching. It will also show how good formatting makes it easier for users or commercial companies to create new analysis tools.

A particularly topical issue is the question of name standardisation, which is something that is essential for certain types of analysis. The EPO encourages data exchange and linking with other sources e.g. on applicant name harmonisation, regionalisation and sectorisation. This allows for in-depth analysis and visualisations that combine different sources ranging from business registers to trade mark data.

Covering over 70 million records from worldwide filings, PATSTAT users can analyse macro level data and extract and visualise indicators that help to assess importance and impact of patent applications. Recently PATSTAT has been developed further in helping users to understand patent statistics by visualisation improved usability. Cross reference and co-assignment data are explored visually to identify new technological trends even before new IPC classes emerge.

Furthermore standard database formats allow the export of micro level data to be analysed in detail with standard database or business intelligence tools. This way hidden patterns can be analysed and insights gained. Bridging the gap between macro-level and micro-level data is a key element in creating consistent analyses.

In the light of open data the users and uses will expand far beyond was has been seen so far in the limited area of patent information.

Johannes Schaaf
EPO

Biography

Johannes Schaaf studied physics in Kiel (D) and Bologna (IT) and graduated as master in physics in 1995. In 2005 he received an MBA from the Henley Management College (UK). He developed optical scanners and acoustic process control systems in the Corporate Technology of the Siemens company. He was a consultant in the area of product definition and led the Community of Practice Innovation Management. Johannes Schaaf worked at the German Patent and Trade Mark Office as a patent examiner in the area of laser physics. At the EPO in Vienna he is now responsible for the area business use of patent information and application manager for the worldwide database for patent statistics PATSTAT and the patent portfolio management tool IPscore.

Researching Russian Patents

Abstract

Major patent databases have an extensive coverage of Russian patents. The author will focus on what is still outside them (including gaps in coverage) and could be complemented by Rospatent and other Russian information sources.

To be addressed: current types of Russian patent publications; Rospatent online research tools (databases, registers, file histories, current issues of OG); a comprehensive search for RU application with foreign priorities; RU patent families (divisional and other related applications, UM <=> patent conversions, partial patent invalidation, etc.) ; unique, compare to INPADOC, content of RU OG notices (assignee/licensee names, RZ notices, court details); compliance of RU OG Headings with WIPO ST.17 and ST.50; peculiarities of FZA9, MM4A, NF4A, RZ4A, PC4A,QB4A, and other legal status codes; Russian official company register (EGRUL); RU and EA pharmaceutical (and agrochemical) patent extensions and their link to prior regulatory product approval in Russia; Rospatent use of front page bibliography of published application as a place for a notice of withdrawal date (data-exchanged with ST.36 B236 code) without OG additional notice; sources of pending hearing on invalidation RU and EA patents before Rospatent Chamber of Patent Disputes(CPD) and text of CPD decisions; patent litigation sources, etc.

Aleksandr Belinskiy
Patent Information Consultant

Biography

Aleksandr Belinskiy is a patent information consultant with interests in pharmaceutical patents and international patent information (former USSR countries, the least-developed countries, etc.) and. Previously, Alex worked at sanofi-aventis as patent information scientist, held contract positions as technical information specialist in NIST and USPTO. Prior to his relocation to USA, Alex managed a technical and business information center in a leading Ukrainian chemical company and was a scientist in a chemical research institute. Alex holds a Masters Degree in Chemistry from Moscow State University and had a post-graduate education in the Karpov Institute of Physical Chemistry (Moscow, Russia) in the field of theoretical chemistry. Alex has presented several talks on chemical and patent information on regional, national and international meetings and was a reviewer in the World Patent Information journal. Alex is a member of PIUG and American Chemical Society.

No Patent Left Behind - a Prerequisite in Biomedical Competitive Intelligence

Abstract

Science and business teams in an industry expect results of prior art searches, competitive landscape, market trends etc. on any given technology to obtain direction to their efforts. This information becomes more critical when the technology in consideration is a drug target that drives the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry. Inventors and pharmaceutical industries are becoming cleverer and attempt to use newer, obfuscated terms to describe their product to retain confidentiality and invisibility. A single missed significant patent can spell disaster and doom for a company. This necessitates the use of a methodical approach to perform efficient searches in the information ecosystem to maximize retrieval (recall) and minimize false positives (precision). In this talk we present our solution to this problem- using our validated synonym dictionary based on heuristic approaches to perform patent searches. Our system has proven to return important patents filed by pharmaceutical giants that were missed while searching using query terms described in standard sources. Hence, utilizing our synonym dictionary is vital for the accurate assessment of competitive intelligence for any drug target. We update our synonym dictionary periodically and keep improving our search capabilities. Our comprehensive and actionable report will enable the researchers to work intimately with complete prior art knowledge, which is a critical prerequisite for success in the drug discovery industry.

Parthiban Srinivasan
Parthys Reverse Informatics

Biography

Parthiban Srinivasan earned his PhD from the Indian Institute of Science, specializing in Computational Chemistry. He holds dual Masters Degree- one in Science and the other in Engineering. He worked for NASA Ames Research Center (USA), Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel) and AstraZeneca. Later, Parthi moved into Contract Research Organizations in India, where he headed Knowledge Engineering Business Units.

Parthiban Srinivasan is the founder of Parthys Reverse Informatics, a leading information research company located at IIT Madras’ Research Park. Reverse Informatics supplies solutions for all the aspects in Drug Discovery Informatics including Cancerinformatics, Neuroinformatics, Cheminformatics, Pharmacoinformatics and Translational Informatics. Reverse Informatics’ three service verticals are Literature Curation, Patent Analytics and Thought/Opinion Leaders' research.

New Software Developments on Chemical Information Extraction from Patent Documents and Markush Structure Analysis

Abstract

ChemAxon has recently released Document to Structure to extract chemical structures from documents. The latest version adapted text OCR and can even work on non-searchable PDF document (MS Office document support in next release). All chemical names found in the document are converted to structures with location information. Bundled with existing optical recognition technology, these combined offers a useful tool for patent mining. As a demonstration of its applications, a public website (chemicalize.org) has been setup with an interactive interface for chemical information visualization and extraction from documents. ChemAxon also improved its Markush search and enumeration technology, and the full patent Markush database from Thomson Reuters can now be searched on Amazon cloud. The new improvements will also be introduced in this presentation.

Wei (David) Deng
ChemAxon LLC

Biography

Wei (David) Deng graduated from Peking University in China in 1999 with a bachelor degree in Chemistry. He then came to the US to study and received his Ph.D. in Computational Chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2004. He did post-docs at Yale University and University of Washington. In 2009 he joined the Cheminformatics group at Roche in Nutley, NJ. His research was focused on chemical patent analysis. In Aug 2011, he joined ChemAxon as an Application Scientist based in the US.

Using IP Legal Status as a Competitive Intelligence Tool

Abstract

Opposition procedures in Europe provide a window into areas of highly competitive technology and commercial interest. By tracking the holders of challenged patents and their opponents, the analyst may gain insight into corporate strategy over time. On the positive side, recording the states where patents are affirmed likewise opens a window into markets where competition is fierce and suggests opportunities for competitive advantage. By examination of the data available in the EPO Register,we can draw a picture of the competitive landscape and benchmark performance of IP decisions in real time. This presentation describes the methods and visualizations used to illustrate the legal status data, and how these tools can be used to shape investment in IP.

John Arenivar
3M Company

Biography

John D. Arenivar holds a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and had experienced life as a bench and scale-up chemist before moving into information research in 1995. Since joining 3M in 1997, John has worked in the corporate library, now called Information Research and Solutions, assisting scientists and engineers with early-stage patent and information research. More recently, as patent analysis has grown in importance, John has also worked on more strategic uses of patent statistics, data and text visualization, and IP valuation for technical managers and IP attorneys.

The Emerging Field of Antibody-drug Conjugates Provides New Opportunities for Cross-discipline Searching

Abstract

Big pharma has taken a strong interest in researching and developing antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) as potential anti-cancer therapeutics. ADCs involve a biologic component, a small molecule component, and a chemical linker to join the two pieces. The biologic component is a monoclonal antibody which may be used as a targeting agent to direct the small molecule, often a cytotoxic compound, to the site of action. Alternatively, the chemical component may be used as a carrier to direct the antibody to its target. From a searching perspective, ADCs pose an interesting challenge for the patent information professional. To tackle these searches, expertise in both chemistry and biology searching is necessary. One information professional may possess both these skills, or a partnership between a chemistry and biology searcher can be formed to adequately complete a request. This presentation will explore the issues that arise with these types of requests, possible approaches for collaboration, and best practices.

Leah Sandvoss
Manager - Patent Searching & Information
Pfizer, Inc.

Biography

Leah Sandvoss has worked as an Intellectual Property (IP) Manager in the Patent Searching & Information group within the Legal Department at Pfizer La Jolla since 2008. In this role, Leah supports the IP attorneys in providing in-depth patent searching and analysis on key projects in the company portfolio. She originally joined Pfizer in 2004 as an Information Scientist supporting scientists on research and development projects by providing pertinent literature and competitive intelligence information. She holds a Master of Science in Chemical Informatics from Indiana University, a Master of Science in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Michigan, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from Kent State University.

Utilizing Patent Analytics for Competitive Advantage & Decision Making

Abstract

Patent research has evolved to include analysis and collaboration as a necessary part of the information gathering and decision making process. The analysis and visualization of research results equips an organization with the insight required to gain competitive advantage and determine whether to build or buy/license, pursue prosecution or not, collaborate externally or continue on your own and much more.

The realm of analysis, visualization and collaboration functionality has kept pace with the growing demands of patent researchers and the teams they support. In this session, you will:

• Be introduced to an array of analysis, visualization and collaboration capabilities (many new, some of which you may already know) and the ends they serve.
• Understand when it's appropriate to seek the assistance of professional patent experts to supplement the work you're doing.
• Hear real-world examples of the benefits gained by organizations through patent analysis.
• Take a sneak peek at what the future of patent analysis, visualization and collaboration has in store.

Bob Stembridge
Customer Relations Manager
Thomson Reuters

Biography

Based in London, UK, Bob Stembridge is responsible for liaison with customer user groups for Thomson Reuters. He joined Derwent (one of the founding components of the IP Solutions business of Thomson Reuters) in 1980 and has held various roles in editorial, marketing, sales and product development over the years. Leaving in 1988 for interludes working as Senior Information Analyst specialising in patent analytics at British Petroleum and European Sales Liaison with Dialog, he returned to Thomson Reuters in 1996.

Bob graduated from University of Sussex, UK with an Honours degree in Chemistry. He is a member of the American Chemical Society (ACS), Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) and the Patent Information Users Group (PIUG). He is also Secretary of the Confederacy of European Patent Information Users Groups (CEPIUG) and the current Chair of the Patent and Trademark Group (PATMG), a special interest group of CILIP, whose members are information professionals specialising in patent and trademark information. Bob currently serves on the Chemical Structure Association Trust (CSA) Trust Board of Trustees to which he was elected in February 2007. He has spoken at numerous conferences and symposia over many years.

Preparing Data for Analysis and Visualization from Multiple Patent Databases

Abstract

There are many exciting new tools for analyzing and visualizing patent information. But before these tools can be effectively used, data must first be normalized and deduplicated. Company names, inventor names, and country names are just a few examples of data that needs to be normalized before meaningful analysis can be done. In addition, conflicting data from different sources must be resolved in order to create accurate and useful analyses and visualizations.

To illustrate these challenges, this presentation will show how analysis results change when 1) using data from a single database, 2) using data from multiple databases, 3) normalized data from multiple databases, and finally 4) when deduplicated, normalized fields from multiple databases are used.

John Willmore
VP, Product Development
BizInt Solutions, Inc.

Biography

John Willmore is the co-founder and Vice President, Product Development, for BizInt Solutions, Inc., and manages the development of all aspects of the BizInt Solutions product line. John has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Rice University and over 20 years experience in software development. John has over 15 years of experience in processing, analyzing and integrating patent and drug pipeline information, and has worked closely with patent and drug pipeline publishers over that period. John plays amateur ice hockey and is an American Kennel Club judge for earthdog, dachshund field trials, and agility.

Patent Cartography Redesigned: A New Generation of Patent Mapping Tools

Abstract

Through a case-study, we will present how new semantic technologies and algorithms have changed the way we can create charts, position and score patents and obtain patent-based cartography to understand a given technological space.

Not a new but an increasing challenge today: the volume of weekly published patents makes it impossible for searchers to comprehend and review all the pertinent patent information out there. Tools are needed in order to connect the different dots and create the relationships within a technological space. Moreover, the scope and type of available data underlying those analysis has completely changed (biblio vs fulltext, English vs MAT, country coverage), hence the need for new visualization techniques and methods while avoiding the typical black-box syndrome.

Methodology

Understanding what is in a patent: how concepts get extracted and how they get a "score"?