PatBase - Patent Information at Your Fingertips
Jinfo Blog

By Robyn Smith

Abstract

Following her review Robyn Smith selects some of the highlights of global patent database, Minesoft PatBase, and looks at why it is worthy to compete with some of the big firms' offerings.

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Patent information has moved from the exclusive purview of the legal department to R&D, business development and marketing. These changes have occurred at different rates across different industries, but the impact is the same. With this shift comes a host of new consumers and end users with a demand for patent intelligence at their fingertips.

In response to this increasing need, patent information platforms have been doing their best to make the complex world of international patents available to an ever wider audience.

Making Patent Information More Accessible

In a review published in March 2015, Minesoft's PatBase, a global patent database spanning over 100 patent-issuing authorities worldwide, is explored.

Available in English, Chinese and Japanese, with crosslingual search tools and machine translations, PatBase contains over 49 million searchable patent family records. The web-based tool allows you to search, review, share and analyse business-critical patent information.

Minesoft's PatBase offers the best of both worlds - command and form searching, simple result viewing formats and advanced analytics, powerful drill down options for the advanced searcher plus straightforward free-text/form options for the more novice user.

Patent Family Records

The primary strength and differentiating feature of the product is that it is made up of patent family records - instead of individual patent documents. At first I was a bit sceptical of this approach as I felt it would limit the amount of text I could view and search. Over time I became a fan of the clarity of the results returned and the easy access to patent family member records.  

There are nine search forms available as well as command search functionalities that can be combined to create a detailed and specific search query. Chemical structure searching is not possible, but CAS registry numbers, chemical synonyms and genome sequences are. Search result sets can be stored, re-run, combined and edited in folders as well as searching within the folder's contents as a way of searching a subset of results.

Minesoft is competing with some big firms in the patent information space - Thomson Reuters, LexisNexis and Questel to name a few, not to mention the plethora of free web services out there... but this little engine is definitely worth a look.

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