Conference Reports

Science and Patent Sessions at Online World, Sept.16, 1997
Washington, D.C.

I. Sci-Tech Content Review

II. Patent Update

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.

• 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.

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

Patent resources on the net searchable for free include:

• USPTO Patent Database
• {IBM Database}
• Micropatent Database

• {QPAT-US from Questel-Orbit}
• {Chemical Patents Plus from Chemical Abstracts Service}
• {Shadow Patent Office}