10 most common pitfalls of patent research > 7. You spend too much time sorting out irrelevant results
Patents require disclosure for how to make and use the invention. This information allows you to discern the type of product the invention supports, which is helpful for determining how the patent’s owner may intend to commercialize the invention. This information is useful for performing white space analysis, or for identifying opportunities for licensing your company’s patents in non-competing applications.
However, a patent’s use isn’t a specifically defined field on a patent publication, and it’s usually found in the summary or description, which can be quite lengthy. Keyword searches that attempt to focus on how an invention is used will often return a sea of irrelevant documents that a researcher will need to review one-by-one to determine which records are relevant.
Use abstract fields to focus your keyword searches.
DWPI abstracts break down a patent’s contents, such as use, novelty, and advantage, into clearly defined fields.
By having this information in searchable fields, patent researchers can focus keyword searches on specific aspects of the patent. With the “use” field, for example, researchers can retrieve patents that describe a particular use in their summary or description, without having to sort through a long list of irrelevant publications.
Example section of DWPI record with enhanced abstract summarizing novelty, use and advantage