I have an impression that many researchers and research institutions are focused on papers and too little on all the information already published as patent or patent pending applications. Besides patents give a tendency of research and market in the industry. Navigating between the many databases online is difficult and cumbersome what I think plays an important role and makes this literature less accessible to the public and less user friendly.
For those who want to search U.S. patents and patent applications, here is a web site for you:
http://patft.uspto.gov/
The left panel is for patents. The right panel is for patent applications.
Most, if not all, important discoveries worthy of patent protection have been or will be filed in the U.S.
You may also check the WIPO database for PCT filings.
From my own experience as a chemist, at least in organic synthesis field, disclosures in patents or patent applications are more reliable and easier to repeat. An inventor has no incentive to fabricate data in a patent application. If wrong conditions or yields were disclosed, the patent would be invalidated. The same thing may not be said about a research paper . . .
Feng,
While I appreciate your sharing the use of USPTO and reference to PCT applications, I differ with you on your statement that most of the important discoveries worthy of patent protection are filed in the US. Generally, one has to file for a patent in their native country before filing elsewhere which means that research conducted outside the US has to be filed in their countries. Sometimes, certain small organizations/ institutions may not have the funds to file multiple filings. Yet another critical point to remember is that a patent filing would be made in countries where there is potential for a technology. In other words, patent filing is driven by marketability of technology.
For the information of those interested, patents from other countries too could be found online. However, these free databases do not have comprehensive data.
Hope this helps.
For several scientific areas (like chemistry, biochemistry, medicine...) it is definitely worth looking in information in patents. But that's not that simple. Not all patent authorities are available online (but the big ones are), besides USPTO and Google patents it is worth looking into the patent database of the EPO called ESPACEnet. Not all information is in english. Commercial patent databases are working with automatic translations and despite of quality issues with automatic translation, the patent information is searchable in english. And a last remark on which countries to choose for search: China is the country that nowadays publishes the most patents in the world, not the US and not Japan.
There are a lot of tools available for researchers to use to search for patent material. These have been mentioned in the previous discussions. However, there are a few things to consider.
(1) Most Patent Applications don't publish until about 18 months after filing. In other words, particularly for fast moving technology areas, there maybe patent applications filed for an invention over the previous 18 months that won't be revealed by patent search.
(2) some technology areas are easier to search for than others. For example, chemistry,biology etc - however, software tends to be a lot tougher, largely because of the way in which software claims are drafted (i.e. functional claiming)
Yes, retrieval of information from patents is a skill and requires lot of training. The search logic is the key to retrieval optimal results with less noise. Patent classification codes can only supplement the searches but cannot by themselves pull out relevant data in most cases.
I think this might be due, to a large extent, because the way papent applications are abstracted by CAS, Embase etc. They focus on claims rather than scientific news in these abs.
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