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Test your patent-searching skills!
The esp@cenet quiz is an exercise proposed monthly 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
You are often disturbed by the use of mobile phones in public areas: cinema, hospitals, etc. To resolve this problem, one can imagine systems blocking mobile telephone communications in a given area or room. Try to retrieve patents relating to those systems.
Solution to the previous quiz
Last month, we proposed a search for patents relating to cameras similar to those described in the following BBC article: "Doctors are using tiny cameras swallowed as a pill to detect stomach illness in patients. The capsule endoscopes - about the size of a jelly bean - transmit information to a belt which stores the images. The cameras are in use at the endoscopy ward at Bristol's Southmead Hospital. The 'New technology' Transmitters contained in the pills send thousands of colour images to the special unit worn on the belt. At the climax of the pill's journey in the colon, the high-resolution images are downloaded to the computer where they can be analysed."
news.bbc.co.uk
Try to retrieve patents relating to this type of "pill camera" used as an endoscope.
Please note that the trademark that can be seen on the picture of the BBC article can help you to find relevant patents.
Solution
You first need to translate the invention in a combination of technical concepts - common technical features you are likely to find in all descriptions of this invention.
In our case:
- Camera, imaging, image
- in vivo, swallow*
seems a good first start.
The keyword combination "swallow* and camera" yields the following patent:
EP0667115: An "in vivo" video camera system
From which additional interesting patents can be retrieved using the hyperlinked cited documents:
DE3440177 Television recording and replay device for endoscopy on human and animal bodies
US4278077 Medical camera system
Additional patents can possibly be found using the classification assigned to these documents:
A61B5/07 Detecting, measuring or recording for diagnostic purposes, endoradiosondes
Alternative solution
As can be seen on the picture in the article the camera's trademark is: M2A
Entering the words patent and m2a in a search engine like google yields many interesting web pages
Among others, a page that reads:
"Given imaging has four issued patents and has submitted more than 40 patent applications worldwide for the technologies employed in the Given(®) Imaging Diagnostic system and for new capsules to be developed using the basic technological platform. Future generations of the Given(®) Diagnostic Imaging System are being developed to capture images of the rest of the upper GI tract and the large intestine".
This means that there are many more patents covering this product. Additional patents can be retrieved by searching for patent filed by "given imaging". Given imaging entered as a patent assignee in esp@cenet yields 43 patent documents.
For example: WO02055126 DEVICE AND SYSTEM FOR IN-VIVO PROCEDURES
This patent document relates to our invention, but cannot easily be found using our above concepts. This shows the difficulties involved in a comprehensive search.
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