Test your patent-searching skills!
The esp@cenet quiz is an exercise proposed to our readers. Its aim is to show that patent searching can be an exciting quest, yielding relevant results in almost all technical fields.
New quiz: Golden nanobullets to knock out cancer
"A GROUP OF Texas researchers injected the nanoshells - so small it would take 5,000 of them to reach the size of a poppy seed - into tumours in mice. They then exposed the tumours to near infrared radiation, heating them enough to kill the cancer but without injuring nearby normal tissue."
"Nanoshells should work in most soft tissue tumours but would be most effective on cancers that can't be removed surgically because they're in an awkward location, such as in the brain, the researchers said."
"In the area where nanoshells were injected, within minutes of heating with doses of near-infrared light the cancer cells died (PNAS)"
"The bullets are tiny gold-coated silica particles, known as nanoshells, that can be injected into a cancer then heated with a special light".
These are excerpts of a recent article on a promising technology to fight cancer.
More on BBC news:
news.bbc.co.uk
Try to find patents covering this technology and neighbouring fields.
Such a search can aim to discover who owns this technology in order to seek research collaborations.
Last Quiz: Blind persons see with sound
"Blind since birth, Ms Thomas is able to recognize the walls and doors of her house, discern whether the lights are on or off and even distinguish a CD from a floppy disk after only a week using a revolutionary new system".
"It works by translating images from a camera on-the-fly into highly complex soundscapes, which are then transmitted to the user over headphones."
This is an extract of a recent BBC article describing this product.
An online demonstration of this product can be heard at: www.seeingwithsound.com
Try to retrieve patents relating to this technology, translating images into sound to help blind people discern elements of their environment.
Solution to the last quiz
Step one: define the concepts best covering the invention - common technical features that may be found in patents relating to the subject - and per concept, define the most comprehensive set of synonyms covering it
In this case, the following concepts - groups of synonyms covering one aspect - can be defined:
- blind
- sound, acoustic
- recognise, detect, distinguish
"blind" and "sound" entered as a keywords in the title and abstract field yields the following interesting patent document:
WO03032889: LASER DEVICE FOR GUIDING BLIND PEOPLE
This document relates to a sound producing system to help blind people detect distances from objects. This is quite similar to what we are looking for.
Step two: check the classification assigned to these relevant documents and, if it is relevant, use it as a search criteria
To proceed, it is relevant to check the classification assigned to this document.
The classifications assigned to this document are: A61H3/06E and G01S17/93.
A61H3/06E corresponds to a walking aid for blind people replacing visual perception using electronic means of detection.
This seems to cover our invention, but may cover other means as can be seen in the list of patents classified under this symbol.
For example, US6298010: Orientation aid for the blind and the visually disabled,
presents a system using a tactile indicator.
Step three: refine the search using this classification
A61H3/06E and its superior level in the classification hierarchy A61H3/06, - can be used to continue the search as it broadly covers all walking aids replacing visual perception.
These symbols combined with "sound* or acoustic*" yield a total of 31 additional results:
"sound* or acoustic*" with A61H3/06E
"sound* or acoustic*" with A61H3/06
This search cannot pretend to be exhaustive, but it shows that this field has been heavily patented.
Our initial document mentions Philips as a company active in the field. To retrieve its patents in this area, it is best to combine the above classification symbols with Philips as a patent applicant.
This search yields zero results. One should not stop the quest here as we may have missed some other relevant documents using the classification symbol as a search key.
By combining "blind" with philips as a patent applicant, you can detect in the obtained list:
EP0410045: Image audio transformation system, particularly as a visual aid for the blind
This patent obviously covers the product described in the BBC article.
This document has another classification assigned quite close to the ones detected in the first place:
A61F9/08 Devices or methods enabling eye-patients to replace direct visual perception by another kind of perception.
To be more complete, our search should also retrieve the documents having this classification and containing the words "sound" or "acoustic" in their abstract. This combination of A61F9/08 as an EC class and "sound* or acoustic*" as a keyword in the title or the abstract yields the following list.
The search can be stopped here, but as usual cannot pretend to be exhaustive.
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