Patents and CD-ROM

CD-ROM offers a new and exciting information delivery mechanism that can provide a valuable extension to the power and resources that the patent professional needs. The ever increasing complexity of the information that has to be assimilated, analysed and compared means that better solutions are required. The growth in online databases is indicative of this and the potential of CD-ROM to complement and add to these resources will become increasingly important. The pundits are also projecting a big explosion in the amount of information available on CD-ROM so that dictionaries, directories and listings of various kinds will be produced. If this comes about then, in turn, it will add further value to the personal computer based 'information station'. CD-ROM is believed by the pundits to usher in a new era of information storage and distribution. Patent information has a high 'information value' content that makes it an attractive area for the use of this technology. There is, therefore, a rapidly growing interest by the 'patent information industry' in CD-ROM. First of all it may be appropriate to briefly describe the technology. The disks are physically the same as the audio compact disk that many of us are now using in the home to obtain even higher hi-fi. The production process to produce a master and then stamped copies from the master is the same. The difference is that the digital data used to produce the master would have come from a computer systems rather than a recording studio. The CD-ROM mastering process would also embody an error checking stage which would result in an error rate on the final copy of better than 1 in 1015. The information on the disk is permanently embedded and may not be amended or updated -- hence the name CD-ROM: Read Only Memory. It is this aspect which determines the use of the technology as an information delivery medium. It therefore complements the magnetic disk storage systems. The disk would be read in a CD-ROM player that would be attached to a personal computer (PC), or other small computer system. This player differs from the domestic player in that the domestic player converts the digital data into an analogue signal for the hi-fi system whereas the CD-ROM player reads the digital data directly into the PC. Used in this way the 120 cm disk can hold approximately 550 million characters of information equivalent to some 1000 floppy disks or 1000 microfiche or 250 000 text pages in computer character form or 5000 pages in image form. The 'Patent Information Industry' served by companies such as Derwent, Pergamon InfoLine, Telesystemes and Internation Computaprint have all recognised the potential of using this technology to complement their current information services and many of them are actively progressing projects to this end. There is a high probability therefore that the 'patent professional' will be encouraged to adopt CD-ROM over the coming months. The wide acceptance of the medium would also assist others in using it to deliver data in this 'intelligent' form. There is potentially a classic chicken and egg situation. The information providers would be reluctant to adopt the medium until there is a population of CD-ROM players. The users -- the patent professionals -- will not obtain the players until the information is there in CD-ROM form. Fortunately the information providers believe sufficiently strongly in the technology to break this impasse and produce some disks.