Non-patent literature (NPL) is as important as patents and can become a prior-art for your invention. Therefore, it is important to search non-patent literature efficiently. It is difficult, however, for novices to search NPL on databases as it requires expertise in various types of NPL that can disclose a patent invention and serve as a prior art.

In this webinar, we will discuss the different types of non-patent literature, top locations on the web where you can search non-patent literature and the importance of this literature with some examples. 

Key-points covered in this webinar

1. Importance of non-patent literature (NPL) searching.
2. A good NPL can invalidate a patent!
3. NPL searching can help in quickly understanding competitors in a domain.
4. NPL searching can help in better patent search.
5. NPL searching can give quick ideas to innovate.

Key-note speaker

Parminder Singh Senior, Patent Analyst, Sagacious IP

Anchor

Tanmay Mittal, Head, IP Solutions – India Region, Sagacious IP

Hello everyone, This is Tanmay Mittal, the Head of IP Solutions, India region Sagacious IP, welcome you all to our session today. In our endeavor to demystify IP information and contribute to works loosing IP Awareness, Sagacious IP is happy to host today’s webinar on this topic “Best strategy to Search Non-Patent Literature”

To set the Tempo, I have an interesting case study before you. I’m sure you’re aware of the lawsuit that PAICE  filed against Ford. They say that Ford is infringing the patent publication, US 8214097B2,having the title as hybrid vehicles, PAICE, a hybrid technology company holds several patents in this field of technology

Foresighted 1974 publication, Propulsion Systems for Electric Cars authored by moment to win the argument in this multi-million dollar loss, and this publication was not a patent , and it was a non patent literature

So before I go on, with the next course of this webinar, to introduce the esteemed speaker for today’s session, we’ll talk more on this topic and share some facts and best practices around how to search non patent literature.

I want to express that I’m delighted to welcome all the participants from different countries, and thank them for taking out the time to join us today. As I always say, your participation is a wonderful encouragement to the efforts and attempt that we’re making, to raise awareness about intellectual property through the knowledge that has been honed by Sagacious over several years of working with inventors, R&D organizations, IP department, and Law firms.

Without further wait, let me introduce our speaker, we have Mr. Parminder Singh, Senior Patent Analyst, Sagacious IP  with us for the session today. Welcome to the webinar Parminder.

Parminder speaking Hi Tanmay, Thanks for having me in this webinar. I’m really excited to share some facts and best strategies to Search Non-patent literature.

Tanmay Mittal speaking  An equal pleasure for me anchoring this webinar and would try and keep it exciting and interactive polls and case studies. And before we start off with the presentation today, I invite our listeners to keep sharing their questions as and when they have it during the course of the session.

As I mentioned earlier, you can share your questions through the Question box and I will pick them up and ask them afterward. Let us now get started with the main part of our session. And I believe we can start that with a quick poll. So allow me a moment.

Which of the following do you think can serve as a non patent literature? And new thinking only science journals? Or books, or literary works? Or content belongs to Academy, or do you think it can be anything?

I mean, it can be a company announcement, or a news, or a press release, Do you think it can be any video on YouTube, or any movie clip from the present, or the past movies? Or, do you think it’s all of these, and, uh, all the things that are being mentioned over here can be used as a potential non patent literature  Or, it can be anything. It may even be a YouTube video or a movie clip.

With that, I guess, I will now request, Parminder takeover and put some light on this topic

Context of the Webinar

Parminder speaking So hi everyone. working as a senior patent analyst, Sagacious IP. Welcome you all to this webinar. Best Strategies to Search non-patent Literature.

So non patent literature is as important as the patent literature, Therefore it is very important to search non-patent literature efficiently however it is difficult for Business to search databases as it requires expertise in this field.

Like what are the best databases like if you want to search non-patent literature in Mechanical domain? You should know the specific databases that focus only on mechanical domain. And if you wanted to search an unfailing licenses domain you should hit the licensing databases first.

Then apart from this, you should also know how to run strings on these databases as the operators required to form a string. It varies from database to database. So, for example, if you’re running a string on let us say, lense.org, it would require different types of operators to be used. And if you run the same search strategy on Science Direct, It would require operators different from lengths dot org.

So in this webinar, we will basically discuss topics like these and other topics. Like what are different types of NPL? How a good NPL invalidate the patent? And how can NPL help you in quickly understanding the competitors in a domain, etc.

These are some points for our audience to let us quickly read these. So we do not own any of the logo cutout or patent marks used here. These are just for illustration purposes.

Second point is all the data that is presented in this webinar. It is from official websites, present databases  worldwide.

The third point is non patent literature during the whole course of this webinar, it will be considered as NPL.

Case Study

So before coming to the best strategies, let us quickly discuss an interesting case of invalidation wherein NPL alone invalidate the patent of a big market giant. That is Apple.So Apple and Samsung are quite famous for lawsuit battles. For this time they were fighting for a design patent. Apple claimed that Samsung has copied the design of the iPad for its Galaxy tab.

In defense, Samsung demonstrated that Apple had patented a common design of a Square display with rounded corners, which is quite popular in movies. So as a proof, Samsung  referred to a movie: The Space Odyssey. It is basically a science fiction film. It was released in 1968. You can see the screenshot of the movie below. So with the help of this  source only, Samsung  was successfully able to invalidate apple patent

So in a similar case, Apple’s Patent Publication, US381 that describes the Atlas bounce-back technology got invalidated. that this is a quite interesting case of invalidity because the same concept was disclosed by Steve Jobs in the MAC world conference before filing the application, which was finally, termed as a prior art by the German Patent Office.

This is an interesting case wherein NPL alone invalidated the patent, two, coming to the next slide. So, these are the table of contents. So, first, we will talk about the value of non patent literature, as compared to patent literature to the world of IP. Under this, we will cover several points and then we will come to the top strategies.

Facts and Values

So, let us share some facts along with the values. So, the first point is giving equal importance to search non-patent literature  as much as on searching up patent literature.

As you can see from the data below, you can see in 2010, around 58,000 patents received a total of around two lakh non-patent literature references  whereas in 2018, around 92,000 patents received a total of around seven lakh  patents  non-patent literature references 

So from this we can clearly see that that there is a tremendous increase in the NPL citations at the end. They’ll references the patent doubles from  4  references for patent in 2010, to 8 reference to non-patent literature.

Under this slide, we all know the basic patenting criteria, that is for the grant of a patent. It should be new. It should be useful, and it should benon obvious. This requires a lot of money to be spent on research and development, and not to mention the application fees.Apart from this, a lot of time is spent in the process of patent grant, therefore, one needs to be sure that he looks for all the possible through this prior art .

Now, that can be a patent literature or an NPL  and searchers sometimes overlook the importance of NPL & do not put equal efforts to search non-patent literature as much as the put on  searching of patent literature. So having said that, we must also acknowledge that we have limited bandwidth to consume and analyze thousands of patent documents every day. This is where the non patent literature databases come into picture, the right strategy and analytical approach, along with the right operators, it can save you from reading thousands of non patent or patent documents.

Case Study 2

So the second point is can NPL also serve as a prior art in case of invalidity search.

We have witnessed multiple cases, case studies, and landlord judgements. And in case of Apple and Samsung got invalidated with the help of a video clip movie that tells us about bean validation of A patent with the help of an NPL. So this fact, alone, tools that can rescue thumping, the large licensing amounts and it can basically help you in invalidation cases when you don’t have a patent as a prior art.

So similarly, in the Paice versus Ford is as then we explained before. That patent got invalidated, just because with the help of a scientific journal. So another court case is a very interesting case.

In this case, in late 1949, in a Donald Duck story, he used Ping Pong Balls as a buoyant objects to lift cart. So an inventor named Karl Liter filed a patent, in 1964. And, contrary to what everyone was thinking, Patent got rejected. So, the examiner said who might have thought that mister Donald Duck and already invented a solution for a non-existing problem. So, Non-patent literature: it can reveal highly relevant documents in almost 50% of the search cases, in any field like mechanical, medical, electronics, or chemical.

There is an abundance of white papers , data video or other disclosures which proves at NPL can be as much a source of relevant art. Abundant literature however that the NPL being unstructured present, basically more challenging solution, but it search to locate a result, and hence, this area is usually ignored by them. So most of the time, technical blogs, videos, product disclosures, they serve as a source of patent novelty destroying art.

Audience Poll

Tanmay mittal speaking  I guess, that was really good. Way to show the value of non patent literature . Thank you for like highlighting that. And I can understand a movie clip, YouTube clip, or probably now That makes sense. But no, a comic book, The Donald case that you mentioned, that was really it was really insightful with that I have launched another poll for our audience and I hope it is visible to everyone.

This poll question is about just getting information about your guesses.

I mean, can you guess the percentage of NPl  that are being cited by the European Patent Office?

Is it  zero to 15%, or is it 30 to 35% cases where you got the EPO  cite non patent literature, is it 60 to 65%, or visiting almost all the cases, you know, 80 to 85%.

I’m getting some really good responses on this one.

Many people think that around 30 to 35% of the patents from EPO, they kind of have non patent literature. A little less, but almost an equal amount of people feel that it is around 60 to 65%. And even lesser people. They think about 80 to 85%.

But the good thing is 0 to 15% option, it has no votes, but I believe we all feel like the importance of Intel is quite high, any of your patents as well. And we’re just trying to guess. So no right answer over here. No wrong answer overhead. We will show you the data immediately just trying to get a hang of how people feel about it.

Will tell you the results, so 50% off the people who voted that, they thought that 30 to 35% of the EPO patents. They have, NPL, around 43%, thought that it is actually 65%, and around 7% thought that it is 80-85 Percent.

Major Patent Office & Non-Patent Literature

Parminder speaking So, moving on to the next slide, there’s another value of NPL for Major patent offices like the USPTO, EPO and JPO.

They are maintaining an inhouse  databases, and they’re sharing the data among themselves, but effective examination of a patent application, So on an average, one out of five search reports issued by the EPO. it contains NPL  citation, mainly from scholarly papers and more than half of all the surgery ports and chemistry, biotechnology, they cite non-patent literature..

Although, this number, this overall number does not seem very impressive at the first glance. It should be noted that a little more than 3% of all the search report, they contain only NPL citations. That is only NPL was considered relevant tracked by the search examiner.

So, even more noticeable is the fact that about 2% of the search reports contain only until document cited which is represented as very relevant prior art  taken alone or by that is represented as relevant prior art in combination with another document, so be it a non-patent literature.

This means that without a thorough systematic and good search, these applications will be considered novel and inventive in the originally claim form. So, it can be seen from the image, at the left, 55% of the citations are scientific journals, In case of USPTO, published patents by 64%.

The scientific journals, in case of the EPO published patents to this data shows us that EPO basically, filing more patents as compared to USPTO. However, both the major patent  office, that is the USPTO and  EPO They are given High weightage to non-patent literature and I think we all can appreciate the fact and to all parties for participating in the poll question earlier.

Tanmay speaking I think from this slide, we can see that option seats issue, the 65%, was a bit more accurate. And of around 43% of us, they voted , so a good high accuracy rate on even guessing, how much percentage of citations of EPO patents, are non-patent literature.

Another thing that I’ll do over here is that both the patent offices, they have given more than 50% weight age. I mean, in other words, if we want to say then we can say that more than 50% of it is on AMP ads. So that was one insight that I wanted to point out.

Identify Competitors and Market Giants with Non-Patent Literature

Parminder speaking So it is basically the continuation of the previous side previous slide. It is observed that biotechnology is the leader in NPL citations that more than 60% of Polish citations there has been applied organic chemistry stat in little more than 30%, and whereas telecom computers and audiovisual media each about 20% of the citations in search reports.

So last year, EPO examiner’s visited the publisher’s website more than three lac time. So the number of concerted documents on the sides, it was not known, but thirty thousand documents. They were ordered via the internal Interlibrary Loan System, which means that these documents are not available online.

They were considered so highly relevant that about one day of waiting time was justified. My point being that consideration of NPL is essential for ensuring the quality of the prior art. So patent literature searching can help you get top assignee and maybe help you understand competitors working in that domain. NPL, they help to identify the key competitors and big market change, letting any domain say product similar to your invention and identify different applications of the invention.

Google is considered the best source when it comes to searching a product. Sometimes patent  databases, they don’t capture the smallest assignee. You can see a small pool, small patent portfolio, as there is only the option of getting top assignees, having large portfolios, patent portfolio.

So here, Google comes into venture, so if you want to search any product, just type the name or description of the product, and Google will show you the products which are similar to the products that you are searching for.

Well, apart from this, you can also quickly search for the product in Google Images. That is basically a more quicker way of creating the bang on result. So in this process, if you come across anything that can be a potential prior art that you can simply collect the product assignee, you can simply collect the product, assignee information, the name of the organization, and all that and look for each painting portfolio  or on any patent database.

You can check whether the assignee has took any patent  for that relevant product that you have come across during the Google searching. So this way, you can say,  NPL can help you to identify the competitors and market giants.

There is another value. That is importance of an NPL Rocket Docket case, So what is a rocket docket, basically?

So this is the basic definition of a rocket docket refers to a code or other tribunal that is noted for its Speedy disposition of cases and controversies that come before it, Often by maintaining strict adherence to the law, asper tends to filing deadlines.

Rocket Docket is basically a USPTO initiative. It is basically for US design patent applications, and the formal name for this initiative is Expidited Examination for Design. So using this initiative, an applicant might get a case closed  in less than a month, or it might take anywhere from 10 months or two years for a newly filed US design a patent application that is not on the rocket docket.

The design examination the USPTO, they are told to prioritize such applications after any applications that are on the rocket, OK, so but the question is, why would any applicant to pass the chance to be on the rocket docket?

So, the first requirement for eligibility for the Rocket Docket is that profiler must not have made any mistakes in the application filing. He must not have forgotten any fees or document, and you must not have any errors of any sort in the drawings.

Everything about the application must be complete and ready for Examination too. Before filing a rocket docket case, one must conduct a pre-examination search to the results of the examination search. It must be also disclose in invention disclosure statement.

The filer is basically required to commit a sign up formal statement, that the NPL search  that was carried out, and which states that the various field of search, such as terms of US. Making classes and subclasses, to the third, is required to have covered US patent documents, non US patent documents and NPL.

So, Non patent literature , here are very essential in this pre examinations that so, here, where the importance of non-patent literature  comes into picture.

Audience Poll

Tanmay speaking Yes, and that was quite established, permanent that with that, I would want to take our audience to another poll, and we’re just launching, and I hope it is visible to everyone.

The next section is about top strategies for setting a non patent literature, and I thought of putting up a question, which of the following do you think is the most effective step to search non-patent literature?  is it using the correct databases for technology. So if it is a medical technology, then you would go to PubMed or do you think we can get enough by doing a citation search on the patent literature that we identify, then the forward and backward citations?

Or do you think it is absolutely essential to go for paid , non patent literature databases because they cover everything? I mean, if you go for one of those, you will get everything. So what, in your opinion, it’s the most effective way of doing non patent literature prior art  search.

I see a lot of people have voted for using the correct database as per technology.

Yeah. Majority of us are banking on all of the above. That all the three that that have been mentioned in the poll are of equal importance and we have to we have to leave no stone unturned. We have received all the answers, and most of us voted for all of the above.

which the fact that we are on the ground, the correct way of vague, non patent literature equally important as patent  literature that I will tell Parminder to take over and talk about the Top five strategies to search non-patent literature.

Top five strategies to search Non-Patent Literature

Strategy 1: Understand different forms of Non-Patent literature

So these are basically the different type of data bases. We have a way you can easily capture non-patent literature basically, quickly and comprehensively. As you can see, the flipkart, Amazon, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest and All the articles published in scientific journals, such as Science Direct, lense.org

All these databases And all these websites, all the social media apps, they all come under the Non patent literature. Apart from this: Google Images, Movies, TV series, Podcast, etc.

They all fall into the category of NPL. That is basically not a patent application, or publication, It can be considered as an NPL.

Strategy 2: Learn and Use Operators.

Now, you already know about the databases, Now, you need to search on these databases and run strings. Before that, you need to put operators. So, this slide, basically tells us about the various operators for Science Direct and lense.org. So we cover the basic summary of all the operators in the upcoming slides.

On the first image, you can see this is a basic search. So, if you can see here in the keyword section if you want to search non-patent literature, you just put here the title of the NPL or any description. Search basically.

More of a semantic search does not do any operators. But under this where the title extractors mentioned, this is the advanced search. So, here, you can use operators. So, these are just the basic operators. That is OR & AND apart from this other operators are used, I will cover that in the upcoming slides.

So, similarly lens.org there is also a basic search option and then an advanced search option, though it is more or less same as it also, uses operators. We’ll come and go to the next slide.

So, here’s another database, Though, it’s also more or less the same, also disclosing about OR & AND and NOT operator oh, we’ll quickly move to the next slide, where we can see all the different operators.

The first is the Boolean operators, which I have already told you, AND, OR & NOT

So, if you want to capture two words, like a flexible pipe, so, if you write flexible and pipe, it will capture document, which contains both the words and if you want to capture only flexible or only pipe. So you just write flexible or pipe , so it will capture any document that comprises flexible or any another document that contains only and not is used for. Basically removing that word from that document, so in case of sciencedirect.com, hyphens or minus symbol is used basically for not.

For example, this is the example that is black minus hole or hyphens minus hole. It will return results containing black but it will exclude any documents where hole operators are used. So you can use parenthesis wherever grouping is required so instead of writing simply A or B and C or D, use something like this. So, it will be more easy for any database to search.

The next point is punctuation.

Example:  if you are using heart attack in sciencedirect.com where , this hyphen is basically working as a NOT operater. Just bring a heart attack and return the same results. It will not exclude attack because it is a phrase. So and particularly in science direct, plurals, and spellings they are included.

So if you put heart attack, it will also include heart attacks. Because there isn’t a thing like heart attack, so it will only capture heart attacks.

 Then if you put color code, it includes color code also Like it will include both the US, the English and the UK English. So this is also in Science Direct.

Example: So this is another very important case in Science Direct, where you have to search any Greek letter. Suppose you have to search Omega. So just enter O M E G A , this will match all the documents that contains the word Omega as well as the symbols that is the Uppercase Omega and the lowercase omega.

the next point is Subscript and Superscript , to search for any chemical notation. if it is H2O which is water , so you just need to write H two O. You don’t need to put a subscript it will automatically search water. These are the words about, again, all almost etcetera. So these words are basically identified as stop words. And these are not searchable in Science Direct.

 There is the operator “near slash hash”.

For example: if you bought implantable near /three cardiac so it will find all the articles that the word implantable within the three words of cardiac. And Cardi, cardiac can come before or after implantable and there is a similar operator or near /#. So, it’s more or less same. The difference is only that It will also find all the words or all the articles with the words implanted implantable. Within three words of cardiac, but implantable must come before cardiac. So in this case, this is the base difference. These are all the operators in various databases.

So here, this is a continuation of that, using direct operators. In orbit, there are basically two sections of searching but the search strategy remains same, like if you have to search flexible or spring 5D, duct or pipe. So these are basically different search strategy.

Each operator, there is a respective definition of this, like the first operator plus, it represents any number of factors like if you put like here, dryer, like for example here, dry so it will  captured dry air drying and N number of words after Y?

So plus means N number of points after Y and then there is a underscore. So underscore basically captures any special characters looking towards. Suppose we put underscore here though it will capture washer and if it’s a hyphen. So it will capture that also washer, dryer Bush and Marcus. More or less of the same, team has a plus. So we can just capture one director tool if you put question mark here in front of PI  ,it will capture pipe and if you put to push in max here, it will capture pipe and pipes also. That is nothing more nothing less.

So, apart from this, there are two other operators are used like W and B, these are the proximity operators. So, if we want to search like washing or drying machine between proximity of words. You will use B operator, it will search washing and drying machine and proximity of two words and there is no order like a machine for washing. It will also captured under this string.

And if you are using W here, triple capture this in the same order, like washing, dry, machine, check will capture, in the same order. And S&P, They are also used for the proximity purposes. it’s all about the orbit operators.

Strategy 3: Searching Articles or Journals in ESPACE

Non patent literature is assigned reference numbers. so these ever format, which is similar to patent publication numbers. But instead of a country code, the letters X P are used.

the X P documents have been classified using the CPC classes, or they have, or they have been cited, in a search report produced by the EPU, X P numbers. They comprise the letters X P, followed by, followed by some serial number. As you can see, and the serial number is, it is maximum of nine digits. Two extra documents they can be retrieved simply by entering the corresponding number.

In the smart search box, as you can see in the screenshot, likes, you can just simply put X, P and number, then we’re available a DOI link that has been added It is a digital object identifier.

So it is a permanent digital identifier given to an object to identify electronic intellectual property documents two, the system, which defines permanent, unique IDs for digital documents, is it is managed by the International DUI Foundation.

So, if you know any DUI , corresponding to a non patent literature document, you can just retrieve that article just by inputting DUIN, the number, in the search box, and you will get that article. Also, You can checkout some limitations of Espace database.

Strategy 4: Checking NPL citations for Patent application or Publication in Patent Database.

This is one of the Best strategy. Suppose you find a closed prior art . So, the next step you should do is run its citations, both backward and forward. In an orbit database. When you run citation search it only shows you the patent citations in the list.

So the question is how we can correct this mistake. So when you run the obligation number in orbit database, as you can see in the screenshot it. A bibliographic page opens.When you scroll a little bit, you will see some patents like this these are the patent citations just after the list of patent s’s citations the list of NPL starts here. So from here you can search that and build off basically you can sell these and built on any suitable non patent database.

So that’s one of the best strategy to end the bang on and in minimum time. Look for inventors of all the closest prior art. Suppose in the course of searching, you find a somewhat close patent. So what you can do is run that patent number on a patent database, like here, and extract its inventor. After extracting the winter, you can run the inventor name on various non between databases. Like, Sciencedirect.com, lens.org. So, you might come across article or general of the same inventor who has not got any patent for a similar technology or product.

Apart from this, you can check the history of the inventor to see where he has worked previously, like, in any organization or a university. So, from there, also, you can extract the publications of the inventor. This is considered as one of the best strategy for finding the relevant NPL.

Strategy 5: Use of Archive.org for Time-Stamps.

So, what is archive.org? It is  basically a website that maintains a record of websites of almost all the companies, from the date they created online website.it is basically done by a non-profit organization and it is not biased in any way. So, the question is how it is useful in case of an non-patent literature?

Example: Suppose you need to invalidate a patent, U S X X X, something number to disclose is a an electrical tiffin box and it’s up by surprisingly, you got a similar product name, swiftron products in Google images that looks like the product mentioned in the patent.

So but for invalidation, you need to have a prior art before a cutoff date. and you list some number. So as the product you found is somehow not available on the website, because it’s a relatively old product, and the seller has removed that product from their website.

We need to have some tools where you can prove that the product existed before the date of the patent.So here archive.org comes into play.

You just need to find the website of the company and search it on archive. org. Suppose the product is belongs to Milton. Just try www.milton.com in this search box. And after entering this, you will see a graph representing how many times on the, archives.org collected data from that website, and along with it.

Shown here, 26 times archive.org collected the data from milton. So, along with it, you can also check the dates, on which the data was updated. Finally, you just need to go to the date before the cutoff date. Or suppose Let us say you have the cutoff date of 6 october. You have the cutoff date of 7th October 2000, 2017, or, 2018. You can just go to any date and see whether the product existed at that date or not. So as you can see in the screenshots. So you can find the product, with all the specifications, and with a legitimate and non-buyers date, That is the October 6, 2017 or something like that. That’s how archive.org can be put under the category of the best strategy to search and then build for a class.

I would like to tell you about the sagacious repository of NPL. There is also one of the best strategy that we use internally at Sagacious. Basically this repository is a collection of various non patent databases, classified on the basis of domain. If you need to search non-patent literature mechanical domain, we have a separate list of NPL databases, which are only specific for mechanical domain.

Similarly, we have other list of known patent databases, but like life sciences and electronics, or in general, engineering. So, with this, I sign off from the seminar and if you have any questions then please do let me know and I will try to answer those questions to the best of my knowledge.

Tanmay speaking Wonderful session today from you, and thank you for adding that extra space. I hope we covered a lot on strategies to search non-patent literature

In the end of the webinar, talking about the proprietary platform that we have to search non-patent literature, to elaborate that a bit, and to give a more detailed information to our audience. The platform has a list of all the non-patent databases that are being subscribed by sagacious on a paid basis, as well as the ones that are available online as free databases.

So, whenever we have a patent search or requests for invalidation, We try and run some of the queries in an altered way using multiple operators and combinations and synonyms on that platform to check what kind of non-patent literature it is. Of course, We are aware of the importance of the major patent offices of the world. So, in other such cases, never want to miss that and we use that platform to do that.

With that, I would want to open the forum to all our listeners today to voice out the questions, and then, maybe, quickly answer them one at a time.

Q & A Session

Question 1. Where would you start if you have a very limited time for Non-patent literature Search?

Parminder speaking strategy that I personally use is the Google Images. If you want to find a product, simply enter the description of the product and the Google Images box, and it will In major cases show you the best results.

Question 2. Is it necessary to search relevant patents to Search, a relevant non patent?

Tanmay Mittal speaking  I’m not sure what that question means. But I believe the listener wants to understand if, if to identify a relevant non patent literature, it is it necessary to first identify a relevant pattern literature?

Parminder speaking it’s not necessary, if you have relevant pattern, then there is no need of searching a relevant non-patent  

Question 3. if there is any general ring relevant for me that is available on Google, but without a date stamp. How do you use that NPL  reference in case of invalidity?

Parminder speaking I’ve told this earlier, also. So you can use that archive.org. If you have that product there, and you are, you do not have any date for that product, you can you will surely have that as the name of the manufacturer or the company name.

So just go to archive.org and there you can find that cutoff date.And that date is considered as legitimate and it is also non biased.You can find the date from there.That’s the only source.

Also, if you can use, there is a tool, Google Tools. There You can select Date. So, if you can select the date before the cutoff date, Google will only show the results before that date. If that product is coming in that search, you can get at that date also. So it’s also a place where you can get the data in case of an invalidity search.

Question 4. How we can search literature reported in pieces as a product to find out the novelty of patent application?

Tanmay Mittal speaking I guess the question is about can we report thesis in any sector as a prior art and then you arrive at a decision about the novelty.

Parminder speaking Definitely, you can definitely sign that document as a prior art .You can definitely say that as NPL , and it will surely affect the novelty of the patent of that of that invention.

Question 5. How to search and study non-english language NPLs, and get them translated into English, or, what kind of sources we use for it?

Tanmay Mittal speaking No, language would be a barrier, but the question is more specifically about, how can we search, you know, non English NPL? So, if you want to search any non english and bill, so, we have a separate team  where we send the invention to the team and they basically help us to serve. So, as the Non-English NPL

I believe. You know searching a non-english language, I believe If you know, the technology that you’re facing and a little bit about what geography will be more active in the technology.

For example, in case of vaccinations, for diseases like malaria and all, We have South African countries that are more research oriented in that  domain  Or South American countries then we can narrow down on the languages that are more prolifically used in the geaography. So while certain non patent literature on Google Scholar or on Google in general, you will try, use the Google to Ask A teacher. And translate the English keywords into those specific language to Mexican or to any of the South African language enter. And then try searching using those keywords on Google.

I’m pretty sure You will arrive at some of the relevant pieces of articles or literary works from Google itself in that domain and from those geographies that may narrow down your search a big, save your time and arrive you at more valuable result.

Now, when it comes to getting them translated into English, then it depends on the importance of that research. If you are trying to use that result in an invalidated search, then the stakes are pretty high. Or, for that matter, in an FTO.

For that, we will generally recommend you to go with official translators. In our case, we can provide you that. But you can go with official translator to get that translated Be sure of the accuracy of what we are interpreting, what versus what the authors tried to create, So that will probably give you an edge and help you, and if you need some sources for it, we will write to you separately and give you that.

Question 6. This is specific to traditional knowledge related innovations. So we have seen in the past lot of cases, specifically from India, In case of  turmeric, as we call it, and the discovery of it. And the mention of it.

 And a lot of our traditional databases, or I will say, traditional knowledge databases, like literary works, from our culture and from specific religions in India. So they have served as prior art and patent rights to it from various databases or various patent  offices in the world have been denied.

Tanmay Mittal speaking So, yes, For traditional knowledge, I believe this will be very country specific, but if there are specific questions about a particular country or a particular region, then your data separately and we will be happy to answer.

I hope we were able to answer these questions. I believe that we arrive at the end of our webinar credit and let me acknowledge the audience really, very participating, very supportive and very aware.

So this has been a wonderful session and I’m sure our listeners have great takeaways from this session and we’ll be able to use several of these pointers when, you know, working on managing innovation for their businesses  or to search non patent literature.

I hope we were able to cover all the questions, but yet if some of the questions were partially answered, or you felt that there was more information required, then please feel free to drop us an e-mail at [email protected] and we would be very happy to reply to you.

Those which were not covered completely will be answered in the write ups, which we publish post this webinar. I would also want to thank Parminder for the insightful session and the data that you presented.

With that, I will also want to mention that Sagacious is offering a complimentary NPL quick search to all the attendees of this webinar.

I want to extend a big thank you to all our listeners who helped us start on time and finish us on time. I would want to say, thank you, bye, take care. Stay safe during this time. Thank you, everyone.

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