"Patinformatics: Patent Analysis for Fun and Profit" Workshop Conducted to Kick-Off 2003 Patent Information Users Group Annual Meeting

Abstract
On May 3rd, 2003 the inaugural journey of my full-day workshop on patent analysis philosophy, personal experience and tools based case studies was conducted with an audience of 45 people to start the 2003 PIUG Annual Meeting. With the exception of a few technical difficulties the event went off smoothly and the initial feedback has been quite positive.

When Lucy Akers, PIUG Chair, told me that the theme of the 2003 annual meeting was going to be patent analysis I became very excited about the possibilities a meeting like this could offer to the patent analysis community at large. Since workshops in conjunction with the Annual Meeting have always proven to be very popular in the past (what with travel budgets shrinking the opportunity to attend a conference and receive training at the same time is appealing) I volunteer to conduct one on patent analysis. I had some experience with putting together sessions of this sort but not necessarily one of this scale and not by myself. Having committed myself I started thinking about what I would cover in such a session. After soliciting feedback from the members of PIUG I decided to try to cover three different types of topics, patent analysis philosophy (such as the Linear Law of Patent Analysis), personal experiences (how have I justified these activities to management and how have I produced the most highly valued results) and software tools based case studies that provide practical examples of how the work is done. Each topic on its own could easily take an entire day to cover yet I had decided to try and do all of them in one day. Feedback from the workshop indicates that I was somewhat successful at doing this but that I will need to work on some of the transitions from one topic to another since I have tried to mix them together instead of delivering them in a linear fashion. In the end I ended up with 192 content slides (I use Keynote from Apple for my slides so I can't call them PowerPoint slides) and 46 pages of additional materials that I thought people would like to read.



I was pleasantly surprised at the turn out the workshop generated with 45 people attending the session. With a group that size it is sometimes difficult to keep them engaged and the screen can sometime be difficult to read from the back of the room. Collectively though I think most everyone learned something and found the environment stimulating and enjoyable. The participants were also very generous with their comments. All of the comments will certainly help me improve the workshop the next time I give it.

Unfortunately, due to the size, I can not include the entire presentation here but some of the highlights included:

Case studies on the use of:

The Aureka System

Derwent Analytics/VantagePoint

OmniViz

ThemeScape

Technology Watch

and Excel (the one really down spot of the day that frankly I am too embarrassed to discuss much here)

Discussions on interviewing skills

Discussion of corporate value from patent analysis activities

The "infamous" poker game

A look at "gatekeeper" methods of conducting patent analysis versus an ad-hoc team approach

and many more additional topics.

Lunch was also quite nice:



Reflecting back on the day after having gotten some sleep I am glad I accepted this challenge and will look forward to offering the session again. There is one confirmed booking for October 2004 and some talk of doing it again at PIUG in 2004 and maybe even taking the session overseas.