AIDS TREATMENT NEWS Issue #210, November 4, 1994
John S. James
AIDS TREATMENT NEWS tried out this database shortly after it was available; we believe it will be valuable to researchers seeking in-depth information about certain treatments. The system is very easy to use, once one is set up to use the Internet. First, we had no trouble finding the patent database, without being told where it was located; we looked under U.S. government, then under Department of Commerce, then under the PTO (Patent and Trademark Office), then under AIDS. Once we got there, using the database was self- explanatory; instructions are available, but we did not need them for simple searches.
As a test, we used the system to look for patents relevant to "compound Q," long a controversial potential treatment for HIV. The technical name for compound Q is trichosanthin, so we searched for that. We found 10 patents, and looked at the "front page" for each. This page has the patent number, the date the application was filed and the date the patent was issued, the inventors, the assignee (the company assigned the rights), an abstract of the patent, and other brief information. We also searched under "RIP" (ribosome- inactivating protein, which is the class of agents to which Compound Q belongs), and found 18 patents, including many of the trichosanthin ones. We printed out one complete patent, and saved another in our computer, so we could use a word processor to locate all instances of certain words within the text.
Computer and Internet Information
The patent database is available through World Wide Web, a "hypertext" system for navigating the Internet. With World Wide Web, you see a document, with certain words or phrases underlined (or otherwise highlighted or noted). You simply "click" on any highlighted word or phrase to get more information on that topic. That information may be in a different computer, even on a different continent; you as the user do not need to know where it physically resides. This makes World Wide Web so easy to use that even computer novices can be effective in minutes -- provided that an expert sets up the software for them.
The only drawback is that, for beginners, getting set up to use the Internet can be difficult. We have heard there are new products, such as "Internet in a Box," which make it much easier to get started, but we have not seen these products ourselves.
Some Internet services also allow use of World Wide Web with an ordinary terminal program, without the graphical interface provided by Web browsers like Mosaic or MacWeb. And those without access to World Wide Web can use the patent database through an electronic mail gateway; for more information, send a message containing the single word HELP to ezgate@cnidr.org.
In case the system you are using needs a URL (Universal Resource Locator) to find the U.S. Patent and Trademark database, you can use http://www.uspto.gov; From there it should be straightforward to find the AIDS patent database. (We did not publish the URL for the AIDS patent database itself, since this may change soon when the database is moved to a larger computer.)
Additional Information
Patents are useful for researchers seeking in-depth information, but seldom for guiding treatment decisions. It usually takes years before patents are granted; until then the applications are confidential. This means that medical practice will usually be far ahead of the patent. But the patent will often have the most detailed technical information available -- more detailed than articles in technical journals -- because the patent system is set up to force inventors to fully disclose their technology in order to assert their claim of exclusive right to it. This makes the Patent and Trademark Office a huge database of useful information, open to the public; even while the patent is in force and the technology is proprietary, others can use this information (with or without the patent owner's permission) to make other inventions, or for other purposes.
The information placed in the AIDS patent database this month is not new; anyone could buy printed copies of the same patents, and various systems for computer searching are available, although usually they are expensive. The advantage of the new system is that it makes AIDS-related patents easily and immediately available, 24 hours a day, in a computer-searchable form, to researchers throughout the world. There is no charge for the service, nor any need to get permission or make advance arrangements to use it.
This patent database software was designed for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by CNIDR (Clearinghouse for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval), an organization created by MCNC, of Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. MCNC [formerly called Microelectronics Center of North Carolina, but now known by its initials] is a private, nonprofit corporation, established in 1992 with the support of the National Science Foundation. AT&T is also contributing to this project by providing computer services, as the demand is expected to overload the computers at MCNC.
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