Current Challenges in Patent Information Retrieval

414 Pages·2011·8.818 MB·English

by  Doreen Alberts, Cynthia Barcelon Yang, Denise Fobare-DePonio, Ken Koubek (auth.), Mihai Lupu, Katja Mayer, John Tait, Anthony J. Trippe (eds.)

The Information Retrieval Series Volume 29
SeriesEditor
W.BruceCroft
EditorialBoard
ChengXiangZhai
MaartendeRijke
NicholasJ.Belkin
CharlesClarke
Mihai Lupu (cid:2) Katja Mayer (cid:2) John Tait (cid:2)
Anthony J. Trippe
Editors
Current Challenges
in Patent
Information
Retrieval
Editors
MihaiLupu JohnTait
InformationRetrievalFacility InformationRetrievalFacility
Donau-CityStraße1 Donau-CityStraße1
Vienna1220 Vienna1220
Austria Austria
[email protected] [email protected]
KatjaMayer AnthonyJ.Trippe
InformationRetrievalFacility 3LPAdvisors
Donau-CityStraße1 PostRd.7003Suite409
Vienna1220 43016Dublin,OH
Austria USA
[email protected] [email protected]
ISSN1387-5264
ISBN978-3-642-19230-2 e-ISBN978-3-642-19231-9
DOI10.1007/978-3-642-19231-9
SpringerHeidelbergDordrechtLondonNewYork
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2011926006
ACMComputingClassification(1998): H.3,I.7,J.1
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Preface
Patent Information Retrieval is an economically important activity. Today’s econ-
omy is becoming increasingly knowledge-based and intellectual property in the
formofpatentsplaysavitalroleinthisgrowth.Between1998and2008,thenumber
ofpatentapplicationsfiledworldwidegrewbymorethan50percent.Thenumber
of granted patents worldwide continues to increase, albeit at a slower rate than at
itspeakin2006(18%),whensome727,000patentsweregranted.Thesubstantial
increaseinpatentsgrantedisdue,inpart,toeffortsbypatentofficestoreduceback-
logsaswellasthesignificantgrowthinthenumberofpatentsgrantedbyChinaand,
toalesserextentinthemorerecentyears,bytheRepublicofKorea.Accordingto
these statistics, the total number of patents in force worldwide at the end of 2008
wasapproximately6.7million(WIPOreport2010).Apriorartsearchmighthave
tocoverasmanyas70millionpatents.BycombiningdatafromOceanTomo’sIn-
tangible Asset Market Value Survey, and Standard and Poor’s 1200 Index we can
estimatethattheglobalvalueofpatentsexceedsUS$10trillionin2009.
Apatentisabargainbetweentheinventorandthestate.Theinventormustteach
thecommunityhowtomaketheproduct,andusethetechniqueshe/shehasinvented
inreturnforalimitedmonopolywhichgiveshimasettimetoexploithisinvention
and realise its value. Patents are used for many reasons, e.g. to protect inventions,
to create value and to monitor competitive activities in a field. Much knowledge
isdistilledthroughpatents,whichisneverpublishedelsewhere.Thuspatentsform
animportantknowledgeresource—e.g.muchtechnicalinformationrepresentedin
patentsisnotrepresentedinscientificliterature—andareatthesametimeimportant
legaldocuments.
Despitetheoverallincreaseinpatentapplicationsandgrants,asituationofeco-
nomic downturn, such as the one the world has experienced in 2008, leads to a
reductioninpatentapplicationsandgrants(asindicatedbypreliminaryfigurespub-
lished by WIPO for 2009). This is, to some extent, explained by the high costs
involvedinapplyingforapatent,particularlyforsmallenterprises.Thecostsofthe
pre-applicationprocess,thelongdurationoftheapplicationprocessandthecorre-
spondinguncertaintyinthelong-termeconomyinsuchperiodsofeconomicdown-
turnneedtobeaddressedbychangingthewaywesearchthepatentandnon-patent
v
vi Preface
literature.BoththeIntellectualProperty(IP)professionalsandtheInformationRe-
trieval (IR) scientists can see this book as a challenge: for the former, in terms of
adaptingtonewtools;forthelatter,intermsofcreatingbettertoolsforanobviously
difficulttask;forboth,intermsofengaginginexchangeandcooperation.
Inthepast10or15years,generalinformationretrievalandWebsearchengines
havemadetremendousadvances.Andstill,weseeahugegapbetweenthetechnolo-
gieswhich,ontheonehand,wereemergingfromresearchlabsandinusebymajor
internet search engines, in e-commerce, and in enterprise search systems, and, on
theother,thesystemsinday-to-dayusebythepatentsearchcommunities.
It has been estimated that since 1991, when the US Federal National Insti-
tute of Standards and Technology (NIST) began its Text Retrieval Conference
(TREC) evaluation campaign, the available information retrieval and search sys-
tems have improved 40% or more in their ability to find relevant documents. And
yetthetechnologiesunderlyingthepatentsearchsystemwerelargelyunaffectedby
thesechanges.Patentsearchersgenerallyusethesametechnologyasinthe1980s.
Boolean specification of searches and set-based retrieval are the norm rather than
therankedretrievalsystemsusedbyGoogleandthelike.Toolsinsomeareashave
movedonsignificantly:someprovidershavesemanticanalysistools,otherseffec-
tivevisualisationmechanismsforpatentdocuments.Andyettherehasnotbeenthe
kindofrevolutioninpatentsearchwhichGooglehadrepresentedforWebsearch.
Inthepastfewyears,theInformationRetrievalFacility(anot-for-profitresearch
institution based in Vienna, Austria) has organised a series of events to bring to-
gether leading researchers in IR with those who practice and use patent search, to
establishtheinterdisciplinarydialoguebetweentheIRandtheIPcommunitiesand
to create a discursive as well as empirical space for sustainablediscussion and in-
novation.
In the first Information Retrieval Facility Symposium in Vienna in 2007
(www.irfs.at),adistinguishedaudienceofinformationretrievalscientistsandpatent
search specialists started to explore the reasons for the knowledge gap. It turned
out that academic researchers were often unaware of the specialised needs of the
patent searchers: for example, they needed a degree of transparency quite unlike
the casual Web searchers, upon which the academics mainly focussed. The patent
searcherswereoftenunawareoftheadvancesmadeinotherareas,andhowtheyhad
been achieved. There were difficulties in finding (and using) a common, compre-
hensiblevocabulary.InthecourseofthatfirstSymposium,andthroughsubsequent
IRF symposia and other joint activities, such as the CLEF-IP and TREC-CHEM
tracks,thePaIRandAspireworkshops,majorprogresshasbeenmadeindevelop-
ingacommonunderstanding,andevenanagendabetweensearchresearchersand
technologistsandthepatentsearchcommunity.
Thisbookispartofthedevelopmentofthatjointunderstanding.Itsoriginsliein
theideaofproducingpost-proceedingsforthefirstIRFSymposium.Thatideawas
notfullyfollowedup,inpartbecauseofpressuretoproducemorepractical,action-
oriented work, and in part because many of the participants felt their approaches
wereattooearlyastageforformalpublication.Inthecourseofthefollowingyears
itbecameapparenttherereallywasademandtoproduceavolumewhichwasacces-
sibletoboththepatentsearchcommunityandtotheinformationretrievalresearch
Preface vii
community;toprovideacollectedandorganizedintroductiontotheworkandviews
ofthetwosidesoftheemergingpatentsearchresearchandinnovationcommunity;
andtoprovideacoherentandorganisedviewofwhathasbeenachievedand,per-
hapsevenmoresignificantly,ofwhatremainstobeachieved.
We have already noted the need for transparency (or at least defensibility) of
searchprocessesfromthepatentsearchcommunity.Wehopethisbookwillallow
theIRresearcherstobetterunderstandwhysuchtransparencyisneeded,andwhatit
meansinpractise.Furthermore,itisourhopethatthisbookwillalsobeavaluable
resourceforIPprofessionalsinlearningaboutcurrentapproachesofIRinthepatent
domain. It has often been difficult to reconcile the focus on useful technological
innovation from the IP community, with the demands for scientific rigour and to
proceedonthebasisofsoundempiricalevidence,whichissuchanimportantfeature
ofIR(incontrasttosomeotherareasofcomputerscience).
Moreover, patent search is an inherently multilingual and multinational topic:
thenoveltyofapatentmaybedismissedbyfindingadocumentdescribingthesame
ideainanylanguageanywhereintheworld.Patentsarecomplexlegaldocuments,
evenlessaccessiblethanthescientificliterature.Thesearejustsomeofthecharac-
teristicsofthepatentsystem,whichmakeitanimportantchallengeforthesearch,
informationretrievalandinformationaccesscommunities.
The book has had a lengthy and difficult gestation: the list of authors has been
revisedmanytimesasaresultofchangesininstitutional,occupationalandprivate
circumstances. Although we, the editors, do feel we have succeeded in producing
a volume which will provide important perspectives of the issues affecting patent
searchresearchandinnovationatthetimeofwriting,aswellasauseful,briefin-
troductiontotheoutlookandliteratureofthecommunityaccessibletoitsmembers,
regardlessoftheirbackground,wewouldhavelikedtocoverseveraltopicsnotrep-
resentedhere.
InparticularitwasdisappointingwecouldnotincludeachapteronNTCIR,the
first of the evaluation campaigns to focus seriously on patents. Also, a chapter on
theuseofLatentSemanticIndexingforthepatentdomainhadbeenplanned,which
ultimatelycouldnotappearinthisbook.
Several of the chapters have been written jointly by intellectual property and
informationretrievalexperts.Membersofbothcommunitieswithabackgroundop-
positetotheprimaryauthorhavereviewedallthechapters.Ithasnotalwaysbeen
easytoreconciletheirdifferingviewpoints:wemustthankthemfortakingthetime
toresolvetheirdifferencesandfortakingtheopportunitytoexchangetheirknowl-
edge across fields and disciplinary mind-sets and to engage in a mutual discourse
thatwillhopefullyfostertheunderstandinginthefuture.
Finally, we would like to thank the IRF for making this publication possible,
thepublisher,Springer;andinparticularRalfGerstner,forthepatiencewithwhich
he accepted the numerous delays, as well as the externalreviewers who read each
chapterandprovidedtheauthorswithvaluableadvice.
Theeditorsareverygratefultothefollowingpersons,whoagreedtoreviewthe
manuscripts:StephenAdams,LindaAndersson,GeethaBasappa,JohnM.Barnard,
Shariq Bashir, Helmut Berger, Katrien Beuls, Ted Briscoe, Ben Carterette, Paul
viii Preface
Clough,BruceCroft,SzabolcsCsepregi,BarrouDiallo,KarlA.Froeschl,Norbert
Fuhr, Eric Gaussier, Julio Gonzalo, Allan Hanbury, Christopher G. Harris, Ilkka
Havukkala, Bruce Hedin, Cornelis H.A. Koster, Mounia Lalmas, Patrice Lopez,
TeresaLoughbrough,Marie-FrancineMoens,HenningMüller,IadhOunis,Florina
Piroi,KeithvanRijsbergen,PatrickRuch,PhilipTetlow,HenkThomas,IngoThon,
SteveTomlinson,AnthonyTrippe,SuzanVerberne,EllenM.Voorhees,PeterWil-
lett,ChristaWomser-Hacker.
MihaiLupu
KatjaMayer
JohnTait
AnthonyTrippe
Contents
PartI IntroductiontoPatentSearching
1 IntroductiontoPatentSearching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
DoreenAlberts,CynthiaBarcelonYang,DeniseFobare-DePonio,Ken
Koubek,SuzanneRobins,MatthewRodgers,EdlynSimmons,and
DominicDeMarco
2 AnIntroductiontoContemporarySearchTechnology . . . . . . . . 45
VeronikaStefanovandJohnI.Tait
PartII EvaluatingPatentRetrieval
3 OverviewofInformationRetrievalEvaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
BenCarteretteandEllenM.Voorhees
4 Evaluating Information Retrieval in the Intellectual Property
Domain:TheCLEF–IPCampaign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
FlorinaPiroiandVeronikaZenz
5 EvaluationofChemicalInformationRetrievalTools . . . . . . . . . 109
MihaiLupu,JimmyHuang,andJianhanZhu
6 EvaluatingRealPatentRetrievalEffectiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
AnthonyTrippeandIanRuthven
PartIII HighRecallSearch
7 MeasuringandImprovingAccesstotheCorpus . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
RichardBache
8 MeasuringEffectivenessintheTRECLegalTrack . . . . . . . . . . 167
StephenTomlinsonandBruceHedin
ix
x Contents
9 Large-ScaleLogicalRetrieval:TechnologyforSemanticModelling
ofPatentSearch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
HanyAzzam,IraklisA.Klampanos,andThomasRoelleke
10 PatentClaimDecompositionforImprovedInformationExtraction . 197
PeterParapaticsandMichaelDittenbach
11 FromStaticTextualDisplayofPatentstoGraphicalInteractions . . 217
SteffenKochandHaraldBosch
PartIV Classification
12 AutomatedPatentClassification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
KarimBenzinebandJacquesGuyot
13 Phrase-basedDocumentCategorization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
CornelisH.A.Koster,JeanG.Beney,SuzanVerberne,andMerijnVogel
14 UsingClassificationCodeHierarchiesforPatentPriorArtSearches 287
ChristopherG.Harris,RobertArens,andPadminiSrinivasan
PartV SemanticSearch
15 Information Extraction and Semantic Annotation for Multi-
ParadigmInformationManagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
Hamish Cunningham, Valentin Tablan, Ian Roberts, Mark A.
Greenwood,andNirajAswani
16 IntelligentInformationAccessfromScientificPapers . . . . . . . . . 329
TedBriscoe,KarlHarrison,AndrewNaish,AndyParker,MarekRei,
AdvaithSiddharthan,DavidSinclair,MarkSlater,andRebeccaWatson
17 RepresentationandSearchingofChemical-StructureInformation
inPatents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
JohnD.HollidayandPeterWillett
18 OfferingNewInsightsbyHarmonizingPatents,Taxonomiesand
LinkedData . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
AndreasPesenhofer,HelmutBerger,andMichaelDittenbach
19 AutomaticTranslationofScholarlyTermsintoPatentTerms . . . . 373
HidetsuguNanba,HideakiKamaya,ToshiyukiTakezawa,Manabu
Okumura,AkihiroShinmori,andHidekazuTanigawa
20 FuturePatentSearch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
JohnI.TaitandBarouDiallo
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
Contributors
Doreen Alberts Theravance Inc., 901 Gateway Blvd., South San Francisco, CA,
USA
RobertArens NuanceCommunications,Burlington,MA,USA,
[email protected]
NirajAswani DepartmentofComputerScience,UniversityofSheffield,Sheffield,
UK,[email protected]
HanyAzzam QueenMaryUniversityofLondon,London,UK,
[email protected]
RichardBache DepartmentofComputerandInformationSciences,Universityof
Strathclyde,GlasgowG41XH,Scotland,UK,[email protected]
JeanG.Beney Dept.Informatique,LCI,INSAdeLyon,Lyon,France,
[email protected]
Karim Benzineb SIMPLE SHIFT, Ruelle du P’tit-Gris 1, 1228 Plan-les-Ouates,
Switzerland,[email protected]
HelmutBerger max.recallinformationsystems,Vienna,Austria,
[email protected]
Harald Bosch Institute for Interactive Systems and Visualization, Universität
Stuttgart,Stuttgart,Germany
TedBriscoe UniversityofCambridge,Cambridge,UK,[email protected];
iLexIRLtd,Cambridge,UK
BenCarterette UniversityofDelaware,Newark,DE19716,USA,
[email protected]
HamishCunningham DepartmentofComputerScience,UniversityofSheffield,
Sheffield,UK,[email protected]
xi