Search Tool Document Association for Prior Art Retrieval
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conducting a proper prior art search is challenging without the proper skills and tools, making it difficult for individuals to find relevant documents efficiently, which is crucial for patent applications, infringement assessments, and other intellectual property-related tasks.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that includes a search tool connected to a client device and a database, using a collecting tool and suggesting tool to associate relevant documents with a search record, allowing users to mark and suggest additional documents based on existing search sessions, thereby facilitating the identification of material prior art.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If a prior art search is conducted without proper skills and tools, then the search process becomes inefficient and time-consuming, but the quality and relevance of found documents deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary system (the search tool with collecting and suggesting modules) that mediates between the user and the prior art documents. This intermediary automatically collects search results, suggests relevant documents based on analysis algorithms, and presents them in an organized manner, thereby compensating for the user's lack of search skills while maintaining high document relevance
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the manual mechanical process of searching, evaluating, and selecting prior art documents with an automated electronic system. The system uses algorithms to automatically analyze documents, assess their relevance, and generate suggestions, substituting the need for human expertise with automated intelligent processing
2Ease of operation
If manual document collection and analysis is performed, then the user has full control over the search process, but the time and effort required increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by automatically collecting search results and pre-analyzing documents before the user needs to review them. The collecting module gathers relevant documents in advance, and the suggesting module pre-processes and ranks them, so when the user views the results, the most relevant documents are already prepared and organized, significantly reducing the time the user needs to spend on the search process while maintaining user control over the final selection
3Reliability
If comprehensive prior art searches are conducted to ensure all relevant documents are found, then the search thoroughness improves, but the complexity of managing and analyzing the results increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the large set of prior art documents into organized groups based on relevance and relationship. The suggesting module divides documents into categories such as highly relevant, moderately relevant, and related documents, presenting them in a structured format. This segmentation makes it easier for users to navigate and manage comprehensive search results without being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information
Data Source
AI summary
A search tool is used to execute a method of designating documents to associate with a search session. The search tool opens a search session in response to a request received from a client computer. The search tool receives from the client computer an indication of documents. Then, the search tool uses storage to find information in storage that links the documents to other documents found in the storage. At that point, the search tool sends a suggestion to the client computer to associate the newly-found documents to the search session.