Intellectual Property Information: A Comparative Analysis of Main Information Providers

After modeling expert user needs with regard to intellectual property information, we analyze and compare the main providers in this specific information area (Thomson DIALOG, Esp@cenet by the European Patent Office, Questel-Orbit, and STN International) in terms of system content and system functionality. The key question is whether the main providers are able to satisfy these expert user needs. For patent information, some special retrieval features such as chemical structure search (including Markush search), patent family references and citations search, biosequence search, and basic informetric functionality such as ranking, mapping, and visualization of information flows are realized. Considering the results of information science research, the practice of patent information shows unexhausted improvement opportunities (e.g., the application of bibliographic patent coupling and co-patent-citation for mapping patents, patent assignees, and technology specialties). For trademark search, users need multiple truncated search (realized) as well as phonetic search and image retrieval (not realized yet).