The Spore® Search software is based on keywords and optimizes the search process based on statistical permutations of those keywords. The result is the most accurate search output available.
This section describes the technology and how a complete search would be performed.
Identify The Relevant Field
The Neopatents search process begins with the analyst identifying search terms of relevance. Here, these are generically represented as A, B, C, and D. Results from searching only for an individual term are represented by a single circle. The areas of overlap between two or more circles represent patents where the correlating terms are present. The target, or niche, result is the outcome from searching for all terms inclusively (i.e. A and B and C and D) and is represented by the shaded area in the very center of the diagram (1). A neighborhood result is the outcome from searching for all terms except one (e.g. A and B not C and D) and is represented by the shaded areas (2) immediately adjacent to the niche. An outlier result is the outcome from searching for all terms except at least two (e.g. A not B not C and D) and is represented by the outlying shaded areas (3).
Focus to Learn More
Next, the analyst may conduct a
Teaching Search. A Teaching Search is a focused search that looks for a subset of results within the niche by identifying results that do not cite the term in the claims but do cite the term in the specification. This type of search is especially applicable to patentability searches as a first search in a patentability review. In this graphic, the black dot (
·) represents the teaching results (~30 patents).
Broaden Horizons
After the Teaching Search, the analyst may conduct successively broader Niche/Neighborhood and Combinatorial Searches. The Niche/Neighborhood Search only formulates query strings for the niche and the immediately adjacent neighborhoods in which only one term is excluded. Combinatorial Searching searches for all possible results where there is at least some overlap between two or more terms.
Put It All Together
The three searches are then used sequentially in the Neopatents Method. By starting with the most focused search and progressing to broader searches, the results returned by the more relevant searches can be screened, analyzed, and classified immediately, thereby communicating significant findings earlier to the IP team. Below, the labeled areas
represent the analysts’s classifications from each step. Review classifications are carried over to successive searches. Therefore, the analyst does not review any result more than once.
