Patent ID: 8694504
Filing Date: 2014-04-08
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method of analyzing technologies, comprising the steps of: a) providing a computer system comprising at least one database having technology information electronically stored thereon and at least one computer running software for querying the database and connected to the database, either directly or via a network; b) deconstructing at least one technology into a set of corresponding functional key components by selecting words describing a physical feature, the feature location, and/or a benefit conferred by the feature; c) the computer formulating a set of non-overlapping queries from the set of functional key components wherein the set of queries comprises a first query for searching a database for all of the functional key components and additional related database queries that each exclude at least one of the functional key components from the first query wherein the at least one additional related database query is a Boolean permutation of the first query; the set of queries selected from the group of niche and neighborhood search, teaching specification search, and combinatorial search; d) the computer submitting the set of queries to search a database; e) the computer retrieving a listing of query results from the set of queries; f) the computer automatically transforming the listing into a diagram; wherein the diagram is selected from the group of radial tree diagram, slanted cladogram, rectangular cladogram, and phylogram; g) the computer analyzing the results with analyses to produce analysis results, the analyses selected from the group of publication/patent ratio, publications/unit time, filing-to-issuance time period, issuance/publication ratio; emigration/immigration of assignees/inventors, patent flux and parsing into time intervals, applications or patents/unit time, date difference between neighboring publications, and examination latency; h) the computer automatically displaying the query results and the analyses results in a graphical user interface of an electronic device or network of devices, wherein the radial tree diagram includes hubs representing each of the groups and hub spokes extending radially from the hubs to individual documents within each of the groups, and wherein the resolution of each hub can be increased by expanding the hub; thereby providing a method for automatically analyzing technologies.