Chemical Abstracts Develops Powerful New Tools to Support Patent Searches

Columbus-based Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) and FIZ Karlsruhe in Germany, have unveiled major upgrades to the STN system which is the primary tool supporting global patent searches.  To be phased into the market beginning in 2012, the new platform will bring improved efficiency and usability at the expert level. New features will include:  project-oriented workflow, combined text and structure queries, simultaneous query and results interaction, real-time analysis of results and virtually no system limits.

STN is the search tool that patent experts, including the world's major patent offices depend on for precision searching and comprehensive, timely and high-quality coverage of science and intellectual property information. Teams of IT professionals have developed the new system with active guidance and insights from a global customer advisory council.

"It is exciting to be part of the development process of the new STN platform," stated Dr. Mark Harper, patent information analyst at Sanofi and member of the STN Advisory Council. "The new system will greatly improve efficiency when searching STN, resulting from improved workflow support for patent experts."

An alpha release to the STN Advisory Council is planned for later this year, and a release to global STN fixed fee customers will follow in 2012. The initial customer release will comprise the core databases of CAS and Thomson Reuters, a number of full-text patent files, and a suite of critical features and functions. Subsequent releases will be enhanced with additional databases and functionality.

For full details, see the release from CAS: http://www.cas.org/newsevents/releases/newstn102411.html