PSALM – patent mining tool for competitive intelligence

摘要

Patent document is a valuable source of information. However, it is neither easy to extract useful information from patents nor simple to track evidence about all patents that may be relevant. This paper describes PSALM (Patent Search and Analysis for Landscaping and Management), a recently developed software tool for competitive intelligence based on patent data. PSALM enables transformation of raw patent data into meaningful and useful information for business decision making. The tool is based on MySQL database and web robot, both supported by routines developed in Java and PHP. PSALM tool assembles patent data from publicly available data bases, collects and analyses bibliographic parameters of patents, but also does text mining and clustering. The objective of this paper is to describe the structure and functions of developed software, to show efficiency and accuracy of its modules (text processing, clustering, visualisation), as well as to demonstrate its usability through an in-depth case study.