# PatentInspector: An Open-Source Tool for Applied Patent Analysis and Information Extraction
## 2 Background Information on Patent Analysis and Tools
### Patent Analysis Tools
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Tool Name** & **Sources** & **Patent** & **Searching** & **Semantic** & **Topic** & **Citation** & **Business** & **Descriptive Statistics/** & **Public** & **Propitetary** & **Free Trial** \\ \hline TopicTracker [77] & - & - & Yes & Yes & No & No & No & No & No \\ \hline TselSpectrogram [78] & PatStat & No & No & Partial & Yes & No & No & No & No & No \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{PatentMiner [76]} & USPTO, JPO, DPM4, IPO, & \multirow{3}{*}{Yes} & \multirow{3}{*}{Yes} & \multirow{3}{*}{Yes} & \multirow{3}{*}{Yes} & \multirow{3}{*}{Yes} & \multirow{3}{*}{Yes} & \multirow{3}{*}{No} & \multirow{3}{*}{Yes} & \multirow{3}{*}{No} \\  & CPD & & & & & & & & & \\ \hline PatentNet [74, 75] & EPO & Yes & No & No & Yes & No & Yes & Yes & No & No \\ \hline PatSeer [79] & Multiple & Yes & No & No & No & Yes & Yes & No & Yes & No \\ \hline Drewent [80] & Multiple & Yes & Yes & No & - & Yes & Yes & No & Yes & No \\ \hline Orbit [81] & Multiple & Yes & Yes & No & - & No & Yes & No & Yes & No \\ \hline IamIP [82] & Multiple & Yes & No & Yes & No & Yes & Yes & No & Yes & No \\ \hline PrRJa [83] & Multiple & Yes & Yes & No & No & Yes & No & No & Yes & No \\ \hline PatBase [84] & Multiple & Yes & Yes & No & Yes & Yes & Yes & No & Yes & On Request \\ \hline UnifiedPatents [85] & Multiple & Yes & Yes & No & No & Yes & Yes & Yes & No & Yes \\ \hline SciTech Patent Art [86] & Multiple & Yes & No & Yes & No & Yes & Yes & No & Yes & On Request \\ \hline Tradespace [87] & Multiple & Yes & Yes & No & No & Yes & No & No & Yes & On Request \\ \hline AcclaimID [88] & Multiple & Yes & No & No & Yes & Yes & Yes & No & Yes & Yes \\ \hline Imography [89] & Multiple & Yes & Yes & No & Yes & Yes & Yes & No & Yes & No \\ \hline ITJaS [90] & Multiple & Yes & Yes & No & No & Yes & Yes & No & Yes & On Request \\ \hline Minosed Origin [91] & Multiple & Yes & Yes & No & No & No & No & No & Yes & On Request \\ \hline Octinine [92] & Multiple & Yes & Yes & No & No & Yes & Yes & No & Yes & On Request \\ \hline Patent Insptation [93] & Multiple & Yes & Yes & No & Yes & Yes & No & Yes & On Request \\ \hline PatentSign [94] & Multiple & Yes & Yes & No & No & Yes & Yes & No & Yes & Yes \\ \hline PatSnap [95] & Multiple & Yes & Yes & No & No & Yes & Yes & No & Yes & Yes \\ \hline PatentInsight [96] & Multiple & Yes & Yes & Partial & Partial & Yes & Yes & No & Yes & On Request \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: Prominent patent analysis tools. The remaining free PA tools (PatZilla, FreeParents and GooglePatents) are not PA tools in the typical sense, as they mainly provide advanced search engines for the retrieval of patent documents. Thus, their PA capabilities are minimal and they cannot be considered similar to PatentInspector, which employs established scientific concepts and targets all types of users. GooglePatents [99] in particular stands as one of the most popular patent search engines, encompassing data from multiple patent offices and offering limited descriptive information (e.g., top inventors, top organizations). The analysis of PA tools and suites reveals that, as stated in the Introduction, while there is a plethora of such tools in the market and in software repositories, few of them are suitable for users with limited coding or scientific backgrounds. PatentInspector emerges to cover this deficit, with results from the USPTO while also offering different methodologies, efficient visualizations and interpretable insights. In addition, PatentInspector introduces a novel perspective of PA for mainstream users and more advanced parties by including topic modeling methodologies that can profile the thematic axes of patent documents and aid users in making informed decisions.