Thomson pulls IP elements together in a single system

Intellectual property (IP) can now be managed, searched for and evaluated on a single interface from information provider Thomson Scientific. Thomson Innovation, which IWR saw before its official launch, combines patent databases, scientific literature and business information in one system.

“IP has become a billion-dollar business that enables your organisation to gain competitive advantage,” said Cindy Poulos, product management VP at Thomson.
She added: “There is an explosion of IP activity in Asia, led by China and Korea.”
David Brown, corporate markets executive VP for Thomson Scientific, said: “IP managers need access to a single IP management system which gives information that’s been validated.”

Brown said the Innovation platform had been developed to let organisations use their IP as a “first line of attack and defence”.

The company expects lawyers, engineers, information professionals and R& D specialists to be the main users.

Innovation is a single online platform for managing IP, monitoring rivals’ IP, and tracking market developments.

The system draws its content from the Derwent patent index, Inspec engineering database, ISI Web of Science, Dialog and Gale.

A highly visual product, Innovation presents information sets as graphs and histograms, and colour-codes search results.

Poulos said greater IP complexity and collaboration had dictated the visual approach: “There needs to be a better way to share and use this information and for users to add annotations.”

Users can set up alerts, and control the highlighting of content. Searches can be filtered by inventor, patent assignee and year of IPC publication. There are also mapping tools for displaying the usage of IPs and citations.

Thomson has also developed technology to cope with Asian languages.