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Nanotechnology in U.S. Patents:Classification,Searching and Analysis

Charlotte A. ErdmannSiegesmund Engineering Library

Purdue University

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Apples and Oranges:

A Work in Progress

Similarities and Differences

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Patents --- Global perspective

• One must have a patent in a country inorder to have protection in that country

• Prior art includes literature from journalarticles, conference papers, patents, etc.

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United States Patents

• Issued Patents and Pre-Grant Publications(beginning in 2001) are available

• Classification (class/subclass) based on claims.• Classification for issued patents is more

thorough since it is assigned by the examiner.It may change from date of issue.

• Classification for published application ismachine assigned• Keyword searching is an option but it should not

be the only search method

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Molecular nanowires from single walledcarbon nanotubes U.S. Patent 7,112,315

Issued September 26, 2006

Inventor: Kiang; Ching-Hwa (Los Angeles, CA)

Assignee: The Regents of the University of California (Oakland, CA)

Appl. No.: 09/354,531 Filed: July 15, 1999

Current U.S. Class:423/447.1 ; 435/182; 977/702 ; 977/705; 977/750; 977/762

Current International Class:D01F 9/12 (20060101); C12N 11/04 (20060101)

Field of Search: 435/176,177,180,182

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Starting Point

Index to the U.S. Patent Classification SystemNanotechnology……………Class 977

Manual of Classification700 NANOSTRUCTURE701 . Integrated with dissimilar structures on a

common substrate702 .. Having biological material component703 ... Cellular704 … Nucleic acids (e.g., DNA or RNA, etc.)705 ... Protein or peptide706 ... Carbohydrate

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A New Class Starts with aClassification Order• Members of work team that created the class and when

it was done• Changes from previous classifications

• Topics included and excluded• See also classes and/or subclasses to examine and

search. More than 31 other classes are represented forNanotechnology

• Glossary of terms• Class schedule, i.e. subclasses• Definitions of class and subclasses with see references

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Class 977 for Nanotechnology

• Created in 2005/2006 as a Cross-Reference ArtCollection

• Provides supplemental art collections forsearching and is not used as a basis forassigning patent applications for examinationpurposes

• US patents or pre-grant publications can only beclassified in class 977 as Cross-references (XR)or Secondary (SEC) classification, and not asOriginal (OR) or Primary (PRI) classifications.

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Class 977 includes:

• Nanostructure and chemical compositions ofnanostructure

• Device that include at least one nanostructure

• Mathematical algorithms, e.g., computersoftware, etc., specifically adapted formodeling configurations or properties ofnanostructure

• Methods or apparatus for making, detecting,analyzing, or treating nanostructure• Specified particular uses of nanostructure

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Issued Patent and Pre-grantPublication• Limited number of patents in Class 977• Used Cassis Patent Bib for statistics from 1970-

October 2006 – 4546 Issued Patents – 872 Pre-grant Publications

• Using Access and Excel, it was possible to get

stats for country and state for the first inventor• Using GIS software, Chris Miller of Purdue’sLibrary tested some mapping capabilities.International locations caused more errors than

US cities

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Even Simple Statistics may not bemeaningful due to small numbers

• Issued Patents – US – 2603 – International - 1770

• Pre-Grant Publications – US – 500 – International - 302

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Goal: Acquire meaningful statistics

• Add relevant class/subclasses for allnanotechnology areas

• Cleanup Cassis data – Inventor cities and countries for geographic data – Multiple inventors – Multiple assignees

• Acquire data from other sources and cleanup asneeded

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Alternate searches on esp@cenet,

WIPO, or Commercial Services

• International Classification (IPC)

• European Classification (ECLA)• Derwent World Patents $$• Questel Orbit INPADOC $$

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International Patent Classification

http://www.wipo.int/classifications/ipc/en/

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PCT published applicationhttp://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/

(WO/2005/015579) METHODS OFFORMING THREE-DIMENSIONALNANODOT ARRAYS IN A MATRIX

International ClassificationG11B 5/855 (2006.01), H01F 1/00 (2006.01), H01F 41/20 (2006.01), H01F41/30 (2006.01), H01L 29/12 (2006.01)

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ECLA offers some possibilitiesBroad Technical Fields Characterised by Dimensional Aspects

Y01

Nanotechnology YO1N More than 100,000

Nanobiotechnology Y01N2 14727

Nanotechnology for InformationProcessing, Storage and Transmission Y01N4 31627

Nanotechnology for Materials andSurface Science Y01N8 11622

Nanooptics Y01N10 19536

Nanomagnetics Y01N12 16764

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Services from European PatentOffice

• Esp@cenet web sitehttp://ep.espacenet.com

– Patent family – Legal status

• Open download in XML possible from

http://ops.espacenet.com

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esp@cenet

• International: G11B5/855;H01F1/00; H01F41/20; H01F41/30;

H01L29/12; G11B5/855; H01F1/00;H01F41/14; H01L29/02; (IPC1-7):H01F

• European: G11B5/855 ; H01F1/00E10M ;H01F1/00E12 ; H01F41/20 ; H01L29/12W4 ; Y01N4/00 ; Y01N12/00

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VantagePointPossible access to improved software

used by many patent analysisspecialists and professional searchers

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Alan Porter and colleagues atSearch Technology, Inc.• Completed funded research while at Georgia

Tech• Created VantagePoint software and wrote Tech

Mining: Exploiting New Technologies forCompetitive Advantage (2005)

• Presented papers on results of research: – “Defining the Nanotechnology Domain in a Real Time

Technology Assessment” – “Mining Patents + Research Publications to Improve

Technology Management: Nano Illustrations

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VantagePoint capabilities

• Importing• Cleaning

• Analyzing• Reporting• Automating

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In conclusion

• Classification offers several systems thatwork with patents

• Searching several system is necessary• At the same time, it is going to take a lot

of work to show good patent analysis in

any field