Search Management

It is not unusual for us to find up to four times more patents in the clients' areas of interest compared to the results provided by our competitors.

Search statistics

The table above shows typically what proportion of relevant patents is found by the various search channels.

The typical search strategy of a professional patent searcher relies on using a set of selected IPC codes and keyword expressions. Patent searchers based in the US will frequently also add some US patent codes. As is obvious from the data in Table above, in both cases the results of the search will be limited to about 60% to 70% of the actual patent portfolio. In practice professional service companies rarely use iterative self-learning search strategies and thus are unable to create an exhaustive list of useful patent codes and keyword expressions.

As an example, one of our clients has been using the 'patent watch' services of one of the largest and most reputable patent attorney firms based in London, UK. The client was shocked when it learned the limitations of the patent search strategies used by its advisors. Our investigation revealed that the preferred patent attorney had missed all 46 patent codes specific to the area of interest of our client and available in the US and IPC patent classification systems. The search strategy used by PatAnalyse revealed almost 4 times more relevant patents compared to the search performed by the professional adviser. Naturally our client realised that any clearance search, freedom to operate project, or a strategic advice provided by their preferred patent attorney firm was doomed to be imperfect because of the inadequacy of the firm’s ability to find relevant patent data. The client now uses PatAnalyse as its preferred supplier of trusted IP intelligence due to our ability to provide much better quality inclusive patent searches.

We are so confident in our ability to find more relevant prior art documents than any other professionals, that we are frequently carrying out the litigation support projects on a success fee basis - charging only a nominal sum at the start of the project to establish a formal relationship and getting paid depending on the number of prior art documents identified by us that are actually used by our clients in the process of invalidating the asserted patents.

Our algorithms are unique in providing capabilities beyond iterative assistance with finding and using all relevant patent codes and keywords - albeit critically important. The methodology is based on a pattern recognition algorithm and can find an additional 30% of patents misclassified in the European or US patent offices. Such significant numbers of patents which are missed by the conventional patent search approach - even if perfectly implemented - cannot be ignored. The extra portion of the active patent portfolio that we can find might well contain the patent documents that prove critical to the patent strategies of our clients.