Tackling Big IP Data - The Hunt for the Easy Button

‘Big Data’ is a term that has been bantered about for the past several years, from social media venues, blogs, conferences and scholarly press outlets.  ‘Big Data’ is even the name of a journal (Journal of Big Data, SpringerOpen Journal) and surprisingly an electronic music project (BIG DATA). The term has many connotations and definitions depending on the industry and the audience. No matter the venue, or who is discussing the topic, there is one commonality which is how searchers manage the ever-increasing flow of data.

Managing ‘Big Data’ is the key to success in any research endeavour. From the perspective of a company (Minesoft) that helps organisations manage patent data, we receive requests from researchers and analysts for what is basically an ‘Easy Button’. In other words, they want a way to take the scope of data which includes the life of a patent by looking at patent publications, classification schema, patent legal status, and reassignment data and pull together a specific set of results that will deliver a clear view of their initial research question or topic. They want a tool that complements other scientific, medical and business literature.

An effective way of managing ‘Big Data’ is to first have a premium database with a search engine that gives the searcher a variety of paths to conduct their research, depending on if they are looking for Freedom-to-operate data, patent prosecution, litigation & infringement, technology transfer, competitive intelligence, patent portfolio valuation etc… Ultimately after following the path in a strong search engine will lead the searcher to the ultimate ‘Easy Button’: integrated analytics and visualization tools within the search engine.

Ensuring that one is using a database search engine that is comprised of a rich set of data is critical to having accurate data sets. In the patent research world this means the data sets should include patent data from all of the patent granting authorities around the world.

Additionally, to ensure the researcher is gathering ALL of the proper data on an organisation, they need to be sure they are browsing the full index of corporations including ‘probable company names’. Having an integrated corporate tree to capture all subsidiaries and other affiliations goes a long way in managing the data. Because the sea of data swells even more when you add Asian assignee names into the mix, it is important to work with a premium database that undertakes an extensive transliteration of assignee names to lead the searcher to the ‘probable company name.’

Having a timeline with legal status and reassignment history as related to the web of acquisition and merger activity is another way a searcher can speed up their process of review and analysis. Additionally, concepts and innovations evolve and drift. Searchers need to see mapping that highlights the key concepts in a heuristic fashion to allow them to draw conclusions to move innovation ahead. Having the data updated on a rapid basis will keep in the user in line with this drift.

Lastly, a strong analytics and visualisation set of tools in a premium search engine ostensibly will offer the user a way to take tens of thousands of patent records instantaneously and gain insights into technology trends, opportunities and competitor activity. Processing very large patent data sets within seconds with a click of a button to create clear graphs and charts that offer interactivity, along with additional customisation options like an analytics dashboard will give the searcher the closest thing to an ‘Easy Button.’

Analytics and searching tools in a vetted, authoritative search engine database will reward the searcher with results that best manage the Big (IP) Data today and in the future.

Doug van der Zee is Director of Business Development, North America, Minesoft, a provider of patent-information tools including PatBase, PatentOrder, PatentArchive and INSPEC, a dynamic web platform designed for precise, fast research in engineering and technology.

For more information on Minesoft go to: www.minesoft.com

Content sponsored by Minesoft.