The text, the full text and nothing but the text: Part 2 – The main specification, searching challenges and survey of availability

Effective searching of electronic full texts of patent documents requires both appropriate search engine technology and high quality source documents. This article reviews the impact of both the historic development of online searching and of document preparation upon the resulting databases. Many standards were developed at a time when patent documents were wholly paper-based, and may no longer be suitable as current guidelines for the preparation of full text electronic databases. Part 1 previously discussed the impact of applicant guidelines and patent office practice upon the usefulness of title, abstract and claim for retrieval. Part 2 reviews the main part of a patent specification, to understand the challenges of using this for various types of patent retrieval. A short survey of the main providers of full text patent information concludes the review.