IBM Releases Patent Search Tool
Orange County – A helpful tool from IBM will allow researchers to scan patents for information related to molecular data. The tool, called the IBM SmartCloud platform (SIIP), is a cloud-based strategic insight platform that can optically recognize chemical images using image analysis to identify specific information. Without this tool, the process of manually searching for the same information could take several months.
IBM developed SIIP for its own use. The technology proved essential to in-house intellectual property experts for licensing and management purposes. To date, SIIP has extracted over 200 million chemical instances from over 30 million documents. The World Intellectual Property Organization, the European Patent Office, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and public resources such as the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s Medline database now use SIIP.
Top life-sciences companies can benefit from SIIP because it is specially designed to search patents for biological information. The platform can help to increase intellectual property licensing, improve research and development productivity, support innovation initiatives, identify possible collaborators, identify acquisition targets, and increase the rate of patent and grant awards. Results from a user search can be shared within and among organizations and are not just limited to scientists. The SIIP can be useful for industries utilizing chemical information such as automotive, consumer electronics, or oil and gas companies.
The software can be just as useful for small and large companies. A user can find information by searching for a drug’s trade or generic names, chemical ID number, or by drawing the chemical structure in the tool. The tool can process natural language in addition to keyword-based searches. It is available for access through a Web browser, and returns similar compounds nearly instantaneously. It can also pull up industry trends, competitive landscape, prior art and other data.
IBM donated a SIIP-created database of over 2.5 million chemical compounds to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support the scientific community. This valuable information includes specific references to searched literature and will allow Medical researchers to understand relationships between chemical compounds more easily. The donated database will be used with the NIH’s existing content to perform functions like comparing uses for a certain compound across available literature.
IBM, also known as International Business Machines Corporation, sells and manufactures computer software and hardware. It offers hosting, technology consulting and infrastructure services. The multinational company is based in Armonk, New York.