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: Smart construction materials absorb and wash away pollution
Recently, one could read in a European Commission news release:
"A European consortium of private enterprises, research institutions and the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) is running a test programme for innovative construction materials set to help in the fight against air pollution. The "smart" construction materials (plaster, mortar, architectural concrete) and coatings are being developed as part of the PICADA (Photo-catalytic Innovative Coverings Applications for De-pollution Assessment) project. Special construction materials and coatings containing titanium dioxide (TiO2) can "capture" and "munch" organic and inorganic air pollutants after they have been exposed to ultra-violet and/or sun rays. The "degraded" polluting substances can then be washed away by rainwater. The new construction materials should help to reduce levels of nitrogen oxides (NOx gases) which cause respiratory problems and trigger smog production, and of other toxic substances such as benzene. The whole project will cost €3.4 million and the European Commission is funding up to €1.9 million."
Try to retrieve patent documents this consortium must have considered when developing their invention: patents covering similar products revealing earlier developments in this field.
Such a search should help the consortium to avoid repeating the R&D work others have done before. With the results of this search, contractors are able to develop a genuinely innovative solution and can assess what the competition has protected in this field.
This search is to be conducted in esp@cenet®.
The EC press release
europa.eu.int
The project website
www.picada-project.com
Last Quiz: A more efficient Wind Generator
Recently, one could read:
"A Japanese manufacturer in Akita Prefecture says it has developed a bladeless wind generator that is twice as efficient as conventional turbines. Mekaro Akita says it uses the "Magnus effect" to rotate the unit, which can generate 16,000 kWh a year in wind speeds of 6 m/sec. Officials want the unit on the market in two years for a cost of US$92,000."
Imagine you are this company and you try to retrieve patents covering similar devices by accessing esp@cenet®.
Solution to the last quiz
Step one: To retrieve similar patents, one can 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. This set of synonyms can then be combined as keywords in the patent database
In our case, the following concepts - groups of synonyms covering the different aspects of the invention - can be defined:
Wind generator, windmill, magnus
The combination "wind generator magnus" yields the following list containing relevant patents like:
ru2189494, Magnus-rotor windmill-electric generating plant
US4366386, Magnus air turbine system
Step two: check the classification assigned to the relevant patents found and use this classification to continue the search.
At this stage of the search, one can consult the classification assigned to these patents. Only the US patent has been classified internally at the EPO under the European Classification scheme - a more finely subdivided version of the International Patent Classification scheme that should be systematically used in online searches. The classifications assigned to this patent are F03D1/06, F03D1/06B2, and F03D3/00D2.
All relate to wind generators, the last two to wind generators using the Magnus effect. One classification corresponds to wind motors having their rotation axis substantially in the wind direction and the other to wind motors having their rotation axis substantially at right-angles to the wind direction.
More comprehensive results can then be obtained by looking for patents classified under one of these symbols. This can be done by entering "F03D1/06B2 or F03D3/00D2" as the ECLA classification in the search screen. The list obtained contains 94 patent documents.
After such a search, one can never guarantee having retrieved all the patents that could be found on this subject. Further searches only using keywords for example could yield a few additional records. But this result can be considered as pretty comprehensive and shows that any development or commercial exploitation must carefully consider existing patents in this field.
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