PATDPA, an online searchable patent database with display of patent drawing

The article describes in more detail the progress of the patent database PATDPA in which at present text searches can be carried out in titles and abstracts of DE patent documents but in which in a later stage the accompanying drawing can be displayed on the screen. After a study of current raster and vector techniques it has been decided to use vectorization techniques for the drawings and outline images are preferred to center-line images. On present packet switching networks transmission time of an average patent drawing takes 15 s but this will be reduced considerably when networks with increased speed transmission are available. Most patent documents have schematic drawings or diagrams provided with reference numbers. These reference numbers turn up in the text of the document, such as in the abstract and/or in the detailed description of the embodiment of the invention. In other words, in patent documents, textual and graphical information 'depend' on each other. Though patent searching can be carried out online within the textual part of documents only, full understanding of the documents found mostly obliges the searcher to look at the complementary graphical representations of the document. Carrying out so-called picture searches in conventional classified search files, the searcher scans the diagrams of the patent documents one by one and looks then at the relevant textual part of 'interesting' documents to learn more about specific details of the drawings (see Fig. 1). Presently, online patent searching can only be done by logical combination of technical terms and/or bibliographical data elements of patent documents. Closer examination of the information retrieved requires provision of a hard copy of the full documents from the library. The concept of the patent database PATDPA(1) to be described in this article in more detail is based on these considerations. In the present PATDPA-Database, text searches can be carried out within the titles and abstracts of DE- Patent documents. In a later stage the accompanying drawing (if any) can be displayed on the screen if necessary.