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From the Editor

We are excited about two big announcements this month — a new Dialog General Manager and a new ProQuest Dialog™ launch! Tim Wahlberg joins Dialog as the new General Manager/Vice President, Corporate Markets, and will drive the vision for Dialog and ProQuest in the professional environment. Tim joins ProQuest from Thomson Reuters, where he held a variety of strategy and operations roles, most recently as Vice President of the Corporate Segment for the legal business unit. His industry knowledge, strategic orientation and track record of driving results make him ideally suited to lead our team. Please join us in extending a warm welcome to Tim, and read more about him and view a video.

In this issue you'll also learn about the new ProQuest Dialog launch and some of its exciting features including set searching, Dialog's new blog and Expert Insights from Dialog Global Customer Support.

 

 ProQuest Dialog Updates

Live from Dialog — it's the ProQuest Dialog February release!

The February release of ProQuest Dialog is now live and features new search capabilities and more scientific and technical content. Designed specifically for Dialog^® and DataStar^® users, the new set building functionality enables users to combine and reuse complex search statements. Set searching, coupled with the ability to stack multiple index or field codes within a search expression, are key components for performing precision search across our authoritative content — and are now available on ProQuest Dialog.

That's not all! Take a look at the growing list of databases in nine segments, including:

• NTIS: National Technical Information Service and Paperbase in Energy & Environment
• New England Journal of Medicine, FDAnews and Gale PharmaBiomed Business Journals in Pharmaceutical & Biomedical, and
• PIRABASE and Inspec^® in Engineering & Technology, just to name a few.

Stay tuned for our next release.

 

New Feature: Set searching is here!

If you typically use command language on DataStar or Dialog, you can now translate those powerful precision features into ProQuest Dialog data retrieval. While earlier releases were well received for ease of use and new capabilities, such as multiple interface languages and translation, this is the first release of ProQuest Dialog to include search functionality specifically designed for Dialog and DataStar users.

In this latest release, users have the ability to build sets and stack multiple index or field codes within a search expression. This new set-building capability lets users combine and reuse complex search statements and is a key component for performing precision search across Dialog's authoritative content. Advanced DataStar and Dialog searchers who are used to creating sets and testing iterations with a variety of concepts and synonyms will find familiar territory in ProQuest Dialog's new set searching.

Here's how it works. Start in Advanced Search and go to Command Line Search. Enter your search terms in the search box. An example above the box illustrates how to enter terms. You can continue to modify the search and create multiple sets. You can stack your field codes, e.g. ti,su(multiple sclerosis), continue to view your sets in the Recent Searches box, combine sets and view results.

Review the At a Glance Set Searching module for a complete demonstration and attend an introductory class to see all of the new functionality.

 

Planning for DataStar customer migration to ProQuest Dialog

Since launch in August, ProQuest Dialog has continued to grow both in features and content. With the February release, ProQuest Dialog offers almost all of the STM content used by DataStar customers. Another key deliverable available with this release is iterative set searching, which enhances the precision search capabilities of the new platform. The powerful searching across authoritative content combined with ease of use is especially significant for the many end users in the DataStar community.

Having achieved these milestones, we have begun the process of communicating with DataStar customers in preparation for migration to ProQuest Dialog. Additional details about the steps for DataStar migration will be provided to the key contacts at each DataStar customer site in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, we are continuing to focus resources on development of other required content and features for the new platform, and moving forward with planning for Dialog customer migration in the second half of 2011.

 

It's easier on ProQuest Dialog
Use precision search features
Do you need to track information on a topic that has been big in the news for a long time and has been the subject of voluminous debate? But you only want to see recent articles — not discussions and opinions from the past. A case in point: healthcare coverage and its relation to small businesses. Use Advanced Search, and set a date limit right from the start. Decide your time frame and choose what you want from the drop-down menu with options for only records from the last seven days, 30 days, 12 months, three years, or your specified date(s).

Achieve even greater precision by using proximity connectors, such as NEAR/n, where n is a number of words between terms. NEAR specifies the terms can be in either order, while PRE/n specifies exact order within so many words. You can use connectors in any of the search forms in ProQuest Dialog, whether Basic Search, Advanced Search or set searching (Command Line).

On the Results page you will find the reduced retrieval based on your precision search gives you more freedom to select the most relevant titles, perhaps SORTing results to see the most recent records first.

Note: Review the Training schedule for introductory and beyond the basics classes on ProQuest Dialog.

 

 March Highlights

Welcome to Dialog's new blog

Social media is hot! But you didn't need us to tell you that. Businesses worldwide from giants like Microsoft^® to the local pizza parlor are all well aboard the social media bandwagon. Companies have used social media to gain exposure for new products, increase traffic to their Web sites, generate quality leads, and most importantly, connect more closely with their customers. Twitter with more than 106 million accounts, Facebook with more than 500 million users, Linked in^®, YouTube and blogs comprise the most popular media — and you likely use more than a couple of them a day yourself.

This month Dialog introduces its new blog, the latest in its social media offerings. Designed by Dialog's support teams to bring search help, expert insights and the latest on training for ProQuest Dialog and legacy Dialog, Expert Insights from Dialog Global Customer Support provides you with new opportunities to learn about Dialog, contribute your ideas, ask questions and more.

You are now just a click away from Dialog whether it's through the Expert Insights blog, Facebook or Twitter. Join us in cyberspace now to keep in touch with Dialog.

 

 Discover: Biomedical & Technical Content Updates

MEDLINE reload completed

The MEDLINE^® reload on Dialog (Files 154,155) is now complete. MeSH^® descriptors in all records throughout Files 154 and 155 now match the 2011 MEDLINE thesaurus. MeSH vocabulary changes for 2011 are available.

 

Cited references: the not-so-secret gems

Progress in science takes place when investigators build on the work of others. These articles, books and other resources are listed in a bibliography, "Works Cited" list or "References," which appear at the end of articles. Science, furthermore, advances gradually by the hard work of many investigators. Researchers depend on citing sources to strengthen the authority of their own work, by demonstrating they have considered others' opinions and ideas in forming their own. In addition, references give readers valuable information, indicating where they may find further information on a subject. Many researchers consider the list of cited references at the end of a relevant article or book as the single most valuable item in their research.

Search cited references on Dialog
Dialog offers the ability not only to view cited references in many of its databases but also provides search capabilities. Using indexes that document citations listed in a bibliography within the body of a record, you can look for articles that cite back to:

• an original article
• articles written by a particular author
• articles from a particular journal.

SciSearch^®: a Cited Reference Science Database (Files 34, 434), Social Scisearch^® (File 7) and Arts & Humanities Search^® (File 439) are major sources of cited reference searching, covering topics from science to the social sciences through arts and humanities. You can also search these three databases in the CITEDREF DIALINDEX^® category. All you need to get started is the name of the first author listed for an article, the date of publication and, if available, the name of and any other particulars about the publication. The EXPAND command on Dialog provides best results because names are often not standardized and may contain misspellings. For detailed information about cited reference searching, review individual Bluesheets or Cited Reference Searching in Files 34, 434 SciSearch^®. Items indexed in Current Contents Search^® (File 440) also appear in one or more of the above databases.

You can view cited references in other databases on Dialog, such as PsycINFO^® (File 11), The McGraw-Hill Companies Publications Online (File 624), Adis Newsletters (File 428) and more. Cited references (RF=) and cited patents (CT=) also appear in patent databases including U.S. Patents Fulltext (File 654,652), CLAIMS^®/U.S. Patents (File 340) and European Patents Fulltext (File 348). To obtain a complete list, search the Bluesheets database (File 415) and SELECT REFERENCE?/BI,AI for Basic and Additional Indexes. Check individual Bluesheets for indexed fields for cited references such as /CR or CR= or CA= for cited author.

 

 Validate: Intellectual Property Content Updates

Finding DWPI family members using Dialog

Originally written for DWPI Linked in by Ron Kaminecki

One of the most frequent questions Dialog receives is, "How do I find a translation for a patent document?" Obviously, translating such a document takes a lot of time and could cost thousands of dollars, so being able to locate a summary that is already translated saves both time and money.

Patent documents publish in many different languages, and chances are there is at least one that may be in a language you understand. Also, Derwent World Patents Index^® translates summaries of tens of thousands of documents per week into English; so, this is a great place to start, but there is more. The trick is also to find a complete document in a language you can understand. This is where Derwent WPI's treatment of patent families can help.

Patents are quite often found in families in which one of the members may be in a language you can understand. Patent families consist of documents linked by a common priority application number. This can include entries from many countries and also documents from the same country that are linked. DWPI not only has English translations of the summaries of these documents, but it also leads you to the various family members that may contain a translation in record time and at minimal cost.

DWPI will always give you a snapshot of the patent family that includes those documents that describe the same invention. Each record will also record the priority number for the family, and this number is essential to finding all the family members. However, in many countries it is possible to improve an invention and still claim the original priority number for the invention. Such is the case when, say, a patent for a drug is applied for and is given a priority application number, and then an improved method of making the drug is discovered at a later time and this new invention is given a priority number. Quite properly, DWPI treats this occurrence as two records, even though they are from the same extended family, and each record will have a link to the other's priority number.

Thus, in order to find all of the family members, you need to search all of the priority numbers found in a record. While this may sound daunting, it is easy if you use the MAP command, which will extract all of the priority application numbers and save them temporarily in a profile you can then execute for searching. MAP extracts the relevant priority numbers from the record in the proper format for searching and then creates a SearchSave that can be executed that looks for records indexed under the same priority number. Because this may retrieve more records with yet more priority numbers, simply use MAP again to extract any new priority numbers. This can be done multiple times until the number of hits no longer increases.

 

A Proximal and a Distal Tip
by Ron Kaminecki, MS, CPL, JD, director, IP segment, U.S. patent attorney

An inventor walked to her patent attorney's office one day, and as she got closer, she saw panicked people running away from the building in which his office was located. Fighting her way through the crowds, she reached the attorney's office. Upon entering his room, she saw him in the window, holding a device outside. When he saw her he quickly turned around, tossed the device onto the floor, and exclaimed, "Some death ray, it doesn't even wound them!"

This story has been around, but I could not help but restate it just before I gave a talk on patents while using, of course, a laser pointer. To make the attendees feel at ease, however, I called it a "harmless laser pointing device."

While the pointer certainly wasn't a death ray, this old joke does show that the same device could be described by different terminology, each with a different intent. The "death ray" is a very short phrase that aptly describes the device, but can you depend upon this phrase being used in a patent? Because one cannot obtain a patent for an illegal device (and it is arguable whether such a device is illegal), it may be easier to claim a, "harmless laser pointing device," and let the user determine its capabilities. And, if you are searching for one or the other, should you consider what an invention could be called? Or will this result in extraneous hits? Obviously, the intent of the author of the patent has to be considered, and, so, when searching, you should consider some alternatives to an invention's ultimate use. Searching for such alternatives can be problematic due to nuances in language.

Is this not non-dispositive or isn't it?
Note there are some words in English that can be confusing, even in the negative. For example, "in" in front of a word is quite often regarded as a negative, but putting "in" in front of "flammable" results in a very confusing word: "inflammable," which should mean non-combustible, but really means the product can be, "in flames." Thus, the word "non-inflammable" really means non-combustible, despite the double negative. And, yes, "dispositive" is not really a double negative because the word root is "dispositive" as in "disposing of a case," and not the negation of "positive." When searching such confusing concepts, it is probably best to try both the positive and the negative terminology.

Most patent databases are available in English, and while this language allows for a minimal number of words to describe an invention, typically patents use phrasing variations to better protect inventions and thus are not considered normal spoken English. For example, the phrase "technology transfer," meaning a method of moving an invention from one area to another, could be rephrased as "transfer of technology" with no loss of meaning. On the other hand, I recall sending out brochures to requesters over the years and always had to ensure that when I enclosed a letter I had actually written, "Please look over the enclosed brochure," rather than "Please over look the enclosed brochure." Yes, that will take the wind out of your sails (or, better yet, sales).

In earlier columns, I talked about searching the legalese found in patents in which the legalese used typical results in patent claims with more general words to describe an invention and also phrases with a change in normal word order. When searching claims, you can use the (N) operator in which N stands for "near" and the operator will find words next to each other in any order. However, to get around the problem with additional words being introduced in phrases, especially when the word order is changed, it is recommended to use the (nN) operator in which n stands for the number of words that can co-occur between the terms. Thus, SELECT CAT(3N)FOOD will find the word CAT on either side of the word FOOD, with a maximum of three words in between.

Using the Near operator is extremely useful when focusing a search of the claims because it is in this field that the majority of the legalese in a patent can be found. The question arises, however, how large should the number in front of the Near operator be? Typically, (3N) or (5N) is used, but you can use (100N) if you wish; but the rule of diminishing returns states you will soon be overwhelmed with marginal or wrong hits and waste a lot of time if you choose too high a number. And, consider the last word of one claim may be your first term and the first word of the next claim may be your second term, so making the number in front of the N larger also blurs the line between claims. If you wish, you can use the (S) for subfield operator and limit the result to just the claims field by using the /CM field suffix code. Thus, SELECT PET(S)NUTRITION/CM will search for these two words in any claim, in any order with any number of terms in between. This solves the problem of crossing claims with your search terms and allows for any number of words in between. I know there are probably longer claims out there, but I did find a U.S. patent with a claim of 2,641 words, or, about seven pages typed out. Yes, all one sentence!

Furthermore, the claims field of some patents is so long it can cause more problems. Consider the case of using the (nN) operator in a patent with several thousand claims. The amount of overlap from one claim to another would cause a lot of false drops. And if you doubt that there are many of such U.S. patents, there are over 200 patents that have 5,000 or more claims, including one that has over 8,000 claims.

Makes you wonder how many ways there are to claim a harmless death ray.

 

 Learn about ProQuest

ProQuest acquires ebrary

As its content-unifying new search platform rolls out to libraries around the world, ProQuest has acquired acclaimed e-book pioneer ebrary, setting the stage for significant acceleration of the process of serious research. The agreement will marry both companies' inventive, user-centric technologies and add a growing pool of a quarter-million e-books to ProQuest's monumental content offerings. The combined collection will enable users to search seamlessly across multiple formats — books, journals, dissertations, newspapers, video and more.

ebrary is the only e-book provider to offer:

• custom subscriptions for corporate libraries with simultaneous, multi-user access
• growing subscription packages with unlimited, multi-user access in many subject areas including engineering, oil and gas, pharmaceutical, medical and business
• the ability for corporate customers to upload and integrate their own digital materials with DASH! from the convenience of their computers
• Software as a Service (SaaS), ideal for large-scale, custom digitization and distribution projects
• title-by-title purchases, department-driven acquisition and publisher packages brokered on the library's behalf.

ebrary's renowned interface enables employees to increase their productivity and get products to market faster through the ability to easily find, use and manage information with cutting-edge functionality such as InfoTools. For more information, contact your Dialog account representative, or click here.