Science & Patent Sessions at Online World [Conference Report] Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship Fall 1997 DOI:10.5062/F4GM859S URLs in this document have been updated. Links enclosed in {curly brackets} have been changed. If a replacement link was located, the new URL was added and the link is active; if a new site could not be identified, the broken link was removed. Conference Reports Science and Patent Sessions at Online World, Sept.16, 1997 Washington, D.C. Flora G. Shrode University Libraries University of Tennessee, Knoxville I. Sci-Tech Content Review presented by Gail Clement, project Director of the Everglades Digital Library at Florida International University Libraries II. Patent Update presented by Nancy Lambert, Chevron Richmond Technology Center, Richmond, California I. Gail P. Clement, presented a session on trends and developments in online information sources in science and technology. She explained a phenomenon she calls disintermediation taking place in the development and flow of scientific information and demonstrated a few tools in pure and applied science. Gail arrived at the term disintermediation as a way to describe some of the impact the World Wide Web has on the way information is produced, disseminated, and used. Replacing the well-understood path of the traditional information chain, from author, to publisher, to secondary publisher, to online vendor, to library, to user, the web provides the potential for new roles and partnerships among stakeholders in the process. Librarians' and information professionals' roles as intermediaries between information sources and users are changing as users' direct access to information tools increases. The web as a platform for electronic information delivery and vendors' efforts to provide products designed for end users is resulting in improved products and services for users. Intermediaries have opportunities to add value to the information in different ways. The growing multiplicity of mechanisms now available for access to content makes librarians' decision-making about how to use their budgets most effectively to meet their community's information needs more complicated. Gail discussed plans to standardize metadata required for data and text on the web which can help users to address errors they encounter. Metadata should indicate who provided or submitted the data and should state data providers' intended purpose in making it available. Two examples of progress on establishing metadata standards are the {Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata} from the Federal Geographic Data Committee's and the {National Biological Information Infrastructure Metadata Standards}. Several specific web sites Gail demonstrated provide examples of new roles for delivery of information from author or publisher to end user, products online vendors are developing which are aimed at end users, and approaches publishers are using to add value to their products through web tools. Sites Demonstrated: Los Alamos National Lab's PrePrints Service (http://xxx.lanl.gov/) {Human Genome Database} (http://gdbwww.gdb.org/gdb/aboutGDB.html) Elsevier's ScienceDirect (http://www.sciencedirect.com/) {Elsevier Science Tables of Contents} (http://www.elsevier.com/homepage/alert/?mode=contents&main=/homepage/about/estoc) Cambridge Scientific Abstracts Internet Database Service (http://www.csa.com/) STN Easy (http://stneasy.cas.org/) {KR ScienceBase} (http://krscience.dialog.com/) {NCSTRL: Networked Computer Science Technical Reports Library} (http://csetechrep.ucsd.edu/Dienst/htdocs/Welcome.html) Cardiothoracic Surgery Network: CTSNET (http://www.ctsnet.org/) {Conservation Ecology} (http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/) Everglades Information Network & Digital Library (http://everglades.fiu.edu/) ISI Web of Science (http://www.isinet.com) {Community of Science} (http://www.cos.com/) II. Patent Update presented by Nancy Lambert, Chevron Richmond Technology Center, Richmond, California II. Nancy Lambert, expert chemical patent researcher at Chevron Research Company in California, reviewed basic information about patents and presented updates and search tips for several online patent search products. Patents can help researchers learn about their competitors' activities. Information about patents and patent applications may augment directories of consultants in specific fields or provide solutions to technical problems. Nancy reminded the audience of the scope of international patents and associated information searching challenges. An article she wrote titled, {Patent Searching: What, Why, When, Were?} provides an overview of several sources of patent information on the Internet. She distributed copies at the conference; the article appeared in the November/December 1996 issue of Online User which ceased published in March 1997. Fundamental principles guiding patentability are presented in Nancy's article as the "Three-Legged Stool of Patents." The three legs are that the patent must be new, it must be unobvious, and it must be useful. Nancy cautions that it is best to turn to patent searching experts in several situations but that end users can benefit from patent resources on the Internet for "quick and dirty" searches. Summarizing from her {Online User} article, Nancy suggested that under the following conditions, it is safe for end-users to search for patent information when: the searcher knows a specific patent number and wants to see the text; the search is for something straightforward such as a patenting company or inventor when they need a few good references on a subject; they can describe their search with precise keywords. It is not safe for end-users to search, and a professional patent searcher is needed if they: want to patent a new invention; are concerned with infringing someone else's patent rights; think a competitor's patent isn't valid; search will support an expensive decision (to launch a research program, for example); need to search other than U.S. patents. Nancy reviewed new developments from online patent sources IFI, Derwent, the European Patent Office, and the United States Patent and Trademark Office: IFI/Claims has a new web site {http://www.ificlaims.com/} "Patent Intelligence and Technology Report" is now available to subscribers on the web has a new email address: claims@ifiplenum.com patent citations back to 1950 are backward searchable is adding information about reissue applications Derwent World Patent Index is adding new indexing to include major/minor terms, roles, links, and reactions indexing is developing a universal template for new abstracts has done a database reload is reorganizing abstracting and indexing under the "Phoenix Project" to improve quality and speed up availability EPO (European Patent Office) Patents Full-Text Available on KR/Dialog back to 1978 (with some gaps) Available on STN, 1996-present Will be available on STN Easy Will be available on the web via Derwent's Internet Explorer Problems: many are not in English but also in French, German EPO patent publications (A-documents) based on World Patents are not included if the world patent is in an EPO language (English, French or German) News from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) Patent law has changed so that patents are good for twenty years from the date of filing instead of the previous seventeen years from the date granted. Increased possibility exists for extensions resulting from PTO delays in processing applications. Provisional applications may be filed without claims or declaration, for a reduced fee, and the provisional filing date will be the priority filing date if converted to a regular application within twelve months. Most countries publish patents eighteen months after application even if the patent is not yet granted. The patent publication in that case carries no legal enforcement but establishes prior art because the patent content is in the public domain. U.S. PTO may change to a similar process. Legislation is in the works to make the PTO a government corporation so it could keep the fees it charges and have freedom from some procurement restrictions. Update of Patent Information on the Internet Most patent material on the net is from the U.S. from 1974 with some gaps. Patent sources have limited searchability, most provide raw data with few enhancements (not full-text), and lack indexes (no expand or browse capabilities). Patent resources on the net searchable for free include: USPTO Patent Database {IBM Database} Micropatent Database Others that may cost money: {QPAT-US from Questel-Orbit} {Chemical Patents Plus from Chemical Abstracts Service} {Shadow Patent Office} Nancy demonstrated the {IBM} and MicroPatent web services. She summarized the strengths and weaknesses of those two and other sites as follows: {IBM Patent Server Home Page} http://www.patents.ibm.com/ibm.html Strengths Free search of titles, abstracts, and claims text for 1971- present of U.S. patents (a few gaps) Free viewing of items retrieved Free images of full patents (1974 - present) Three levels of search text with powerful and flexible advanced search text Connections to other patent resources and links to forward and backward citations Weaknesses Clumsy and unobvious advanced text search syntax Some patent front page fields not yet searchable Limited time-ranging capabilities Many holes in the data Patent images fuzzy and hard to read MicroPatent http://www.micropat.com Strengths Full-text search and display Front page image display in Patent Gazette Easy to order patents, but they are not free Weaknesses Only current information searchable Primitive search capabilities except for the Patent Gazette USPTO Patent Database http://www.uspto.gov Strengths Good search engines (two search modes) Good online help Good information resource Good links to other patents Weaknesses Covers only 1976 - present Only front-page information searchable No images available Cannot choose multiple fields {QPAT-US from Questel-Orbit} http://plpatprd.questel.fr/plpat/jsp/en/login.jsp Strengths Full-text of patents is searchable Menu or command language search options Boolean or natural language search options Powerful, flexible command language Excellent text browsing Weaknesses Not free: $1995/year for unlimited use Slow, both searching and loading text No choice of display mode: only relevance-ranked results No images (as of September 1997) {Shadow Patent Office} http://www.spo.eds.com/patent.html Strengths Major text-crunching engine Long strings of text may be entered System generates a list of "similar" patents when a U.S. patent number is entered; supplementary search subject Weaknesses Expensive (except for freebies of current patents) Slow (text crunching often times out) No information on what is actually happening Exaggerated claims of search value