Intellectual Property Law

Keep Track of Competitors With Google? Patents RSS Feeds

By Brian Wm. Higgin

     Not too long ago, I noticed that Google® Patents was including an "RSS" feed link on some of its hit lists. I started using this feature to track what others are saying in new patent applications about specific pharmaceutical drugs, medical diseases, or a specific patent number (a client's patent, for instance). Here's how it works. 

     If I'm interested in tracking, say, a specific kind of cancer, I can search Google® Patents using that search term. At the bottom of the results page is a link that looks like the following:

"Stay up to date on these results using the patents RSS feed on cancer"

     I then cut and past the link into my RSS feed reader software. Whenever Google® Patents adds a new patent application that contains the search term ("cancer," in this example), my feed reader will grab the text of the application (or a portion thereof) and display it in my reader along with a link to the actual patent application on Google® Patents. 

     This saves me the time of having to manually enter the search every few days or whenever I need to know what others are discussing in patent applications about my topic of interest. This is especially useful when I want to track what others are saying about a client's patent portfolio, or a specific generic drug formulation that I might be researching, or whatever.

     You can do the same thing in Google® Web, if you want to broaden the scope of your search to include the entire Internet.

     "RSS" (stands for "Really Simple Syndication"). Click here for a summary of how RSS works (Wikipedia discussion).

Full post as published by Maryland Intellectual Property Law Blog on February 28, 2008 (boomark / email).