Example of APA (Automatic Patent Analysis) APA …...Example of APA (Automatic Patent Analysis) APA from a study of Solar panels Henri Dou , Atelis ESCEM Tours Poitiers, France Julyeta

Example of APA (Automatic Patent Analysis) APA from a studyof Solar panels

Henri Dou, Atelis ESCEM Tours Poitiers, France

Julyeta Paulina Runtuwene, Competitive Intelligence Unit, SULUT, Indonesia

Sri Damayanty Manullang, IICI (Indonesian Institute for Competitive Intelligence)

Christian Betton, Société Energie pro, France

e-mail [email protected] website http://www.ciworldwide.org

Abstracts : The patents are a unique information source for the SMEs. In this paper we analyze

the field of solar panels (to produce warm water) using the worldpatent database available from

the EPO host. Various analytical techniques are presented from IPC analysis to drawing

browsing. We underline in this study how a small company may find a deep benefice by the

systematic usage of patent information to secure its idea, test the market and boost innovations.

1 - Introduction

The creation of an innovative dynamic in SMEs in Europe of in developing countries (1) is

grounded to the use of an understandable information which will fit the need of these entities. An

information which too close from research will be too far from the concern of SMEs since its

integration in the production will be on a time scale much too large. This is the reason why since

several years we have developed the use of the patent information and the development of

various facilities to retrieve the patents and to perform automatically the most useful analysis on

these local databases. We present here a real study which will extend on the protection, the

knowledge of the ongoing applications and technologies and the application made by the SME.

The field of R&D (solar panel) integrated in most patents a drawing, very useful for the SMEs,

since its visual perception is better than to read a long and often blur description most of the time

in English.

2 – Material and method

The information source was the worldpatent database available from the EPO host, and which is

free. The development of the patent retrieval to build up a local database and to perform the

automatic analysis was done through the Matheo-Patent software, already described in various

papers. (2). The analysis of the local patent data aimed to show in a visual way (chart, networks,

matrix and also drawings) the trend in technology, the main actors, their competencies, etc.. (3).

Oit is then very easy to answer to the classical questions (4) :

• What are the technologies and uses (from the retrieved patents)

• What is the trend of these technologies and applications

• Who is doing what (inventors)

• Which is doing what (applicants)

• What are the strategies of the various companies involve in that field (automatic benchmarking)

• What are the R&D strategies of various groups of country

• What are the companies which collaborate together (joint patents)

• What is the network of the inventor

• What is the status of the patent (public domain if aged of more than 20 years, colse from 20

years, or from Inpadoc if the data are available)

What are the sited patents in the key patents sectioned.

The local database can be update if necessary using the same query of a different one. The key

patents may be selected and grouped according their importance (applicants, countries, IPC …),

and the groups analyzed in depth (networks, matrix, etc…). All the patents or the selected ones

may be transferred under various formats to integrate the data in word processors, or in local

databases, Intranet, Extranet, or to set up a new database for a more sophisticated analysis (5).(6)

3 – The case study, solar panels

The context of this study is the following: an SME from the South of France, specialized in the

development of solar heating systems, experimented a very simple technology to buildup solar

panels with a low production cost. That SME whished to know if it will be possible to produce

the panels without infringing already existing patents. The date of the study was February 2007.

The solar panel developed by the SME was the following :

Figure 1 – The drawing of the panel

This drawing and the explanation were the document summarized the discussion that we had with

the director of this small company (no more that 5 people). The two crucial points of the panel

are the entrance and the output of the warm water.

We process the search by using the IPC (7) International patent Classification available from

Internet (IPC). But to process in this way is long and tedious, so we test the availability of the

catch words (8) to go directly to the right class. By chance if the term panel is not present in the

in the catch words the term solar can be find and allows to select the right IPC class: F24J. A

more complete analysis of the CIB through the CIB database conducted to the choice of :

F24J/2/20

2/20 . . the working fluid being conveyed between plates [4]

Using this class as for the query of the database, we selected 2650 patents (although the original

search was done in 2007, we conducted a new search in October 27th 2009 to make this paper

more accurate). The following figure shows to see part the the direct analysis of the IPCs present

in all the patent retrieved. One or more IPC may be present in the same patent.

Figure 2 – Main screen of Matheo-Patent and selection of the IPC F24J and among the

patents concerned one which is particularly interesting

The IPC are automatically presented on the left part of the screen. The selection of one IPC leads

to the presentation on the right part of the screen of all the patents indexed with this class. The

bottom part of the screen shows the information related to the selected patent. The pertinence (1

to 8) in yellow has been added by the reader as well as the comment which appears in red..

4 – The strategy in the patent selection

The above patent has not been selected using the classification, neither the words of the title or

the word of the abstracts; In this case, reading one after the other more than 800 patents will be to

long and will take too much time. To select the patents directly related with the problem of the

SME, we use a property of Matheo-Patent which is to select patent by browsing automatically

through the patent drawings. On course in certain cases this method will not be suitable if the

number of drawings is small. But, in the case of the solar panels this method is welcome since it

allows even if you do not know English to select the right patent. To do so, the main screen of

Matheo-Patent with all the patents present is selected from the menu, then analysis is selected and

in the menu which shows up on the left part of the screen drawing is selected. All the drawings

will appear on the left part of the screen and the selection of one drawing will lead to the patent

selection on the right part of the screen and to its refence information on the bottom part. Another

way to see the drawings related to the patent is to move the mouse to the patent number. If the

drawing is present, it will appear as indicated on figure 3.

Figure 3 – Selection of a critical patent

When passing the mouse on the patent number WO03040631 we can see a drawing which is

quasi the same as the idea developed by the SME. More information area available: reference

and abstract. If necessary the full text of the patent can be directly downloaded. The abstract of

the patent shows clearly that it covers all the idea developed by the SME.

Abstract of WO03040631

A solar heating panel comprising three substantially parallel plates, a front plate (10) a middle

plate (12) and a rear plate (13) assembled in distance to each other, where at least the front plate

(10) and the middle plate (12) are glass plates and the rear plate (13) is energy absorbing, and

where a liquid may flow between the middle plate (12) and the rear plate (13), where a coating

(11, 11') that is transparent to visible light and short waved infrared radiation but is reflecting

long waved infrared radiation is coated on at least one of the glass surfaces facing into the room

between the front plate and the middle plate.

5 – Depth analysis of the former patent

More information has to be obtained on the former patent due to its importance since it seems to

block all the possible development of the SME’s idea. One way to obtain more information is to

use the cited patents. They are directly obtained from the software and are presented in figure 4.

Figure 4 – The network of the cited patents

On constate que le brevet sélectionné est de l’année 2003, c’est à dire très loin de son extinction.

The selected patent if from 2003 that is to say very far away from the date of its extinction. It will

seem then that we should stop a further analysis of the downloaded patents since for this former

result it seems that the SME’s idea was already covers by a patent. But, because of the facility of

the drawings selection we nevertheless continue to browse through them. This leads to the

selection of another patent, as shows in figure 5:

Figure 5 – New patent very close from the first one slected by browsing through thedrawings

Figure 6 – Bibliographic data of the new patent

Abstract of DE3120794

The invention relates to a solar collector for heating a fluid, in particular air and/or water. The

solar collector has a light-permeable plate, behind which an absorption layer is arranged, which

absorbs solar radiation and forms a part of the wall of a chamber which has connections for

conducting through the fluid to be heated. In order that, even in the case of polluted fluid, the

absorption of solar radiation cannot be impaired by dirt coatings and at the same time a reduction

of heat losses can be achieved, the chamber is arranged on the side of the absorption layer facing

away from the light-permeable plate. The absorption layer is preferably arranged at a distance

from the light-permeable plate, the space arranged in between being closed. As support for the

absorption layer, use can be made of a metal plate or a foil. Pipes for conducting through water

can additionally be arranged in the chamber, which are in heat-exchanging contact with the

absorption layer.

This patent, which indeed is very close from the SME’s idea is a German Patent which has been

published in 1982 and which is in the public domain since it is older of more than 20 years from

now. This very interesting for the SME, since it could be opposed o the World Patent selected

during the first analysis. Moreover it seems strange that this patent is not indicated in the cited

patent list of the patent WO03040631.

6 – Access to the full text of the patents

This is the last step before taking a decision to go or not go for the SME. The full text of the two

patents is downloaded automatically by Matheo –Patent. The result is show in the following

figures.

Figure 7 : Full texte of the patent WO03040631

Figure 8 – Claims from the above patent

Figure 9 – Full text of the patent DE3120794

A carefull examination of the claims of the most recent patent as well as the description and

revendication of the German patent leads the SME to modified slightly its original idea, to be

closer from the description of the patent which is in the public domain, and to prevent a possible

litigation with the most recent one.

Conclusion

The patent information is invaluable for any company large or small. Patent information provides

often the way to new innovations (19 - 11). They are free from query to downloading of the full

text of the patent online. In our case it was not necessary to develop all the classical bibliometrics

correlations available from the software. The simple use of the capability to search directly from

the drawings gives to the SME the answer expected: yes there is a patent which is still in force

and which is close from its idea, but there is also another patent in the public domain which can

be used to avoid any infringement. It is not even necessary to protect the idea of the SME since it

is very close from the patent which is already in the public domain. In our opinion, this last patent

should have been cited in the patent WO03040631 but the lack of direct access to search through

the drawings could be the cause of its oversight.

Bibliography

1 - Competitive Intelligence, Technology Watch and Regional Development

Henri Dou, Sri Manullang

Editor Editor MUC Consulting Group, December 2003 - Jakarta - Indonesia ISBN 979-

98236-0-9

2 - Competitive Intelligence and Technology Watch for Industry Development

Henri Dou, Sri Manullang, Jean Marie Dou Jr

Editor Departemen Perindustrian, Indonesia, 2007

3 - Inteligencia Informaçao e conhiecimento

Kirha Tarapanoff

Editors IBICT, UNESCO, Brasilia 2006

4 - Managing Strategic Intelligence – Techniques and technologies

Mark Xu

IGI Publishing, IGI Global, London, 2007 ISBN 10-1599042436

http://www.igi-pub.com/downloads/pdf/07%20ISRCatalog.pdf

5 - Voir http://www.matheo-analyzer.com

6 - Benchmarking R&D and companies through patent analysis using free databases and special

software: a tool to improve innovative thinking

Henri Dou

World Patent Information, Volume 26, Issue 4 , December 2004, Pages 297-309

7 - http://www.wipo.int/classifications/fulltext/new_ipc/ipcen.html

8 - http://www.wipo.int/classifications/fulltext/new_ipc/ipc7/ecw.htm

9 - Inteligencia Informaçao e conhiecimento

Kirha Tarapanoff

Editors IBICT, UNESCO, Brasilia 2006

10 - A rapid analysis of Avian Influenza patents in the Esp@cenet database – R&D strategies and

country comparisons

Henri Dou (France), Ying Bai (BAST China)

World Patent Information 29 (2007) 26–32

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