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From the Editor

Happy New Year from all of us at Dialog! 2011 will be one of the most exciting years in the history of Dialog and DataStar, as ProQuest Dialog™ continues to evolve as a comprehensive content collection with powerful search capabilities.  Stay up to date on the news and announcements about content and features with the Chronolog, and check the Dialog Web site regularly for additional details.

January in focus
Our January issue takes a keen focus on ProQuest Dialog and its latest enhancements. We'll also look at Dialog’s combination of comprehensive content, precise indexing and free search tools to create meaningful competitive intelligence reports, the Dialog Advisory Board, IFI and Derwent file enhancements and, of course, Ron Kaminecki's reflective, informative and entertaining column. And be sure to review and register for new classes. All of this and more lie ahead in this issue.

 

 ProQuest Dialog Updates

What are customers saying about ProQuest Dialog?

“I was blown away!” “This is what we have been waiting for” are typical comments. "The response to ProQuest Dialog has been overwhelmingly positive," reports Morten Nicholaisen, VP of Global Sales for Dialog.

ProQuest Dialog has generated excitement among information industry professionals since its launch in August. Information industry publications have applauded the new features and functionality of the service — touted as both simple enough for the novice and powerful enough for advanced users. Customers using the service are delighted by the clean, intuitive interface, ease of filtering, the new limiting facets and left-hand truncation.

As we continue to add new content and functionality throughout 2011, we invite you to give us your input in the Dialog User Panel to help us ensure we continue to meet your evolving needs and deliver beyond your expectations.

 

It’s easier on ProQuest Dialog

Selecting databases
Where should you start when you need to find excellent sources on cutting-edge science on a topic with which you are not familiar? In ProQuest Dialog you can start in an industry-specific collection, where you can quickly find the content you need without a lot of extraneous noise. Or, decide to search all the content you have access to at once, an especially good option if you’re looking for something obscure. The opening screen guides you to where you need to go.

Choose one of several ways to select databases:

• Enter terms in the query box to search all available content using a basic search (fig. 1).
• Click one of the nine subject categories to search all databases in a category.
• Browse a database list by clicking List at the top of the screen.
• Select particular files by name or subject category, by clicking Change at the top of the screen.

Click Clear all and then choose the category or databases you wish to search. Click Use selected databases and enter your terms (fig. 2).

From the Results screen, you can still see a ranked list of databases based on the number of hits from your search (fig. 3).

Clarification on question mark truncation and Autosuggest

Question mark truncation:

• The ? stands for one character. Two ?? stand for two characters (not up to 2 characters). To retrieve compute or computers or computing, you would have to search: compute or computer or comput???

Due to plurals and stemming, compute would retrieve computed and computes; computer would retrieve computers and to get computing or some other three-character version of comput, you would use comput???

Autosuggestion:

• The EXPAND command on legacy Dialog lists terms that are indexed. On ProQuest Dialog, the autosuggestions that appear as you type your terms in the search box reflect terms that ProQuest academic searchers have used in searches — it does not mirror EXPAND or show indexed terms. (We use terms used by academic searchers in order to protect the confidentiality of corporate and government searchers who use ProQuest Dialog. You can be confident that the search terms you use will never appear to other users, even anonymously or aggregated with the terms of other corporate and government users.)

 

 January Highlights

The Dialog Advisory Board: An integral part of the Dialog community

The Dialog Advisory Board is comprised of Dialog customers around the world and includes senior level managers responsible for oversight of information services. A critical component of the Dialog community, the Advisory Board represents a wide spectrum of industries and users. Members, who are selected based on their breadth of experience, knowledge of information needs and willingness to engage on the issues, serve a vital function in facilitating two-way feedback and consultation with Dialog.

The Board is a crucial source of insights about customer issues and concerns, product development needs and service requirements. Members not only have the opportunity to influence decision-making at the highest levels of Dialog management, but also get to experience meaningful interaction with colleagues throughout the industry.

Each year, members participate in a two-day meeting. At recent meetings and focus groups, the Advisory Board has given feedback on options for handling set searching, pricing and semantic search in the new ProQuest Dialog, among other topics.

Many members find serving on the board to be a significant experience as so aptly stated by retiring board member, Gail Presslar from Eastman Chemical Company: “Participation on an industry advisory board is an honor to each of us, for which I would like to thank the Dialog organization.  I wish all of you the best as you unravel and bring organization to the ever expanding world of information. Kudos to Dialog for decades of ongoing, incredible service.”

 

London Online review

The Online Information Conference & Exhibition in London (November 30 to December 2) marked another milestone. We released a significant number of additional scientific, technical and medical (STM) databases and brought the collection on ProQuest Dialog to more than 50 databases covering nine vertical sectors, including Aerospace & Defense, Engineering & Technology and Energy & Environment. The additional content was released with fanfare and eagerly received at a special customer event on the first day of the show. In addition, the recognition of three information professionals from Chiesi Pharmaceuticals (Italy), Napp Pharmaceuticals (UK) and the Royal Society of Medicine (UK) as Quantum² InfoStars at an afternoon reception, made the Dialog and ProQuest stand a bustling hive of activity.

One of the highlights of Day 2 featured a session on the role of taxonomy in open access search and discovery by Edward Watkins, Director, Platform Management, with standing room only for more than 80 attendees. The session was so well received that Eddie was invited to present the topic at a conference in Potsdam, Germany, in 2011.

 

Free Files of the Month

Which database to search? — Use Dialog precision files!
Need to find Dialog databases that refer to a specific company? Check the Dialog Company Name Finder. Looking for an article in an obscure biomedical journal? Search the Journal Name Finder. Can’t locate a particular product? Find the code in Product Code Finder or learn which databases contain images by looking in Dialog Bluesheets. These “search aid” databases provide a wealth of specific information to help you more effectively search Dialog. And, best of all you can use them for free every day!

This month we’ll familiarize you with these four databases and encourage you to take advantage of precision search capabilities they offer.

Dialog Finder Files
The Dialog Finder Files provide precision and cost savings by enabling you to pinpoint the best files for your searches — for free. The Finder Files let you search across many database indexes to collect and sort names or codes to identify databases that contain the terms. They're always a great place to start when your query has a company, journal or product name. Dialog Company Name Finder™ (File 416) searches over 100 databases that contain a company name, patent assignee, trademark owner or copyright owner. The results of a search show the form in which the names appear in the original database index, including abbreviations, punctuation and spelling variations. Dialog Journal Name Finder™ (File 414) has just been updated with the most recent journals throughout Dialog databases. Dialog Product Code Finder™ (File 413) references product names and product codes, typically PN=<Product Name field>, PC=<Product Code field>, or SC=<Standard Industrial Classification Code field>.

Directing your search
Not only can you locate journal, product and company names, but by reviewing the databases you also can tell what kind of information is contained in the database. For example, if you want a company history and background, current news, financial data, patents, mergers and acquisitions, trademarks or products, the list of databases in the Company Name Finder will point you in the right direction.

Look in the Finder Files to

• identify files with the most comprehensive coverage of a journal
• identify a journal name without knowing the exact journal title or even the first word of the title
• find appropriate codes to search product names no matter how it is entered in a database
• locate commercial firms, associations and non-profit organizations.

Dialog Bluesheets (File 415) lets you search all the Bluesheets for content, specific indexing and more. You can locate databases with images or others with specific fields, such as sales data, patent numbers and SIC codes, to name a few.

These valuable databases help you select appropriate databases and construct strategies to search most effectively. See an Overview about the files. And, don’t worry; these tools aren’t going away. The capabilities of these important search aids will continue to be incorporated into ProQuest Dialog.

 

 Discover: Scientific & Technical Content Updates

Create meaningful competitive intelligence reports
By Ron Rodrigues, MLS, senior content specialist

“As work becomes increasingly information intensive, organizational success will depend more and more on giving each individual contributor needed information at the right place, at the right time, and in the right form.”

—Arno Allan Penzias, Nobel Laureate in Physics, Bell Laboratory NJ

In today’s high-tech society with information available from a multitude of sources, it’s important to make sure you obtain authoritative data, but that’s just the first step. Doing something with that data is vital to competing globally.   

Dialog provides you with a giant first step — all the data from hundreds of sources at your fingertips. But there’s more. You can then organize that data into the information you need using Dialog online resources — free search-aid databases, precision indexing and powerful commands. And, finally analyze the information to create reports in the Dialog interface to produce real “intelligence.”

Simple as 1-2-3

• Step 1: Retrieve the data. Meaningful reports are custom reports that fit the exact needs of each searcher — the better the fit, the more meaningful the report. Typical “off the shelf” market research reports tend to be very expensive and not always entirely useful. You may spend thousands of dollars for a report that provides only one small bit of information you need. Dialog’s diverse collection of databases with names like Dun & Bradstreet, Inspec^®, Frost & Sullivan and others gives you the power to create your own customized reports covering all aspects of business and industry from the science and technology to intellectual property all on one platform at a fraction of the cost of an entire market research report.
  
  By taking advantage of Dialog’s powerful indexing, you can search Dialog Bluesheets™ (File 415) easily and inexpensively to drill down to the right database(s) not only by subject but also for specific indexed name. For instance, if you’re in need of industry information, you can use the Bluesheets database to identify Dialog databases with a named field (e.g., Standard Industry Classification (SIC) or the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS)). Simply EXPAND on the Named Index Field (NF=), for databases with fields that correspond to the specific subjects of your report.

• Step 2: Organize data into information. Other tools (e.g., Dialog Product Code Finder™ and Dialog Company Name Finder™), along with powerful commands like RANK, SORT and REPORT, make it easy to organize your data into relevant information. Learn more about these files, the Free Files for January.

• Step 3: Analyze information to create intelligence. DialogLink^® 5 and DialogClassic Web™ enable you to export your information to Microsoft^® Excel and Word report templates created by Dialog, thereby giving you the additional power to expand or analyze your information into the final product — intelligence.

Now you have Dialog — the one-stop shop to retrieve, organize and analyze!

 

Single source for key scientific, technical and business resources

Dialog continues to bring key scientific, technical and business resources together in one convenient place.  For example, if you are looking for pharmaceutical information from an authoritative provider, you’ll find IMS sources including R&D Focus, Company Profiles, New Product Focus and R&D Focus Drug News. These files have deep archives dating back to the early ‘80s and ‘90s, and can be searched in combination with other pharmaceutical sources such as Adis R&D Insight and Adis Clinical Trials Insight.

Business databases such as Gale PROMT^®, ABI/INFORM^® and Gale Newsletter Database™ not only offer general news from trade journals but also business information about science and technical subjects as well. Metadex and Materials Safety Datasheets provide needed technical information and can be searched in combination with other engineering and materials resources such as Ei Compendex^® and PASCAL.

Dialog’s breadth and depth give you the range of resources you need!

 

MEDLINE reload update

The last 2010 daily update for MEDLINE^® was loaded on Dialog with update code 20101208. The 2011 update cycle for the National Library of Medicine (NLM) updates has begun. On Dialog and DataStar, the new 2011 MeSH thesaurus was loaded with the first 2011 daily update. Daily updates will continue with an initial catch-up period when more than one update is added per day. The entire database will be reloaded with 2011-mode descriptors sometime in January.

 

 Validate: Intellectual Property Content Updates

Annual update to CLAIMS

IFI has augmented its IFI CLAIMS^® /U.S. Patents (File 340), as well as its chemical indexing Files 341 (Uniterm) and 942 (CDB), with updated assignee name changes, probable assignees, class code revisions and new indexing terms.

IFI is known for the comprehensiveness and quality of its patent assignee (a.k.a. company ownership) information. The recent update of the IFI files provides the latest information on assignees, including updates to IFI’s unique “probable assignee” names for published applications.

U.S. published applications often publish with no assignee listed. IFI’s “probable assignee” algorithms identify the likely patent assignee, and this information is added to the appropriate record. For example, LG Electronics Inc KR was identified as the “probable assignee” in 1,007 unassigned applications published in 2010, in addition to the 1,842 applications that listed them as the patent assignee on the document as received from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The “probable assignee” information significantly improves retrieval, in this case with 1,007 additional records, over 35% of the total.

New terms for green tech
Growth in green technologies has fueled interest in new terminology to help identify key patents, and many of IFI’s new terms (searchable in Files 341 and 942) cover energy and environmental concepts. Over 260 new terms have been added and posted to more than 6,000 documents. Examples of new terms recently added include:

• UT=RENEWABLE CHEMICALS (UN= or CN=11297)
• UT=BIOFUELS/HYDROCARBON/ (UN= or CN=11057) — for searching renewable diesel and biogasoline
• UT=THERAPEUTIC AREA/CT/ (UN= or CN=11302 ) — new collection term with 233,595 postings

Note: Acquired in September by Fairview Research, a provider of data enrichment technology and services for technical information retrieval and analysis, IFI’s name has been changed to IFI CLAIMS^® Patent Services, a division of Fairview Research LLC.

 

DWPI coverage enhancements — Malaysia and Russia

By covering more authorities, Derwent World Patents Index^® (DWPI^SM) (File 351) provides more efficient technology monitoring, prior art and freedom to operate searching. This is achieved through comprehensive, convenient, English language summaries/abstracts with authoritative, intellectually abstracted and indexed content that is otherwise difficult or impossible to find. New content from Malaysia and enhanced coverage of Russia are the latest editions to DWPI.

Building on the extensive coverage of Japan, China and Korea, to now include content from these new authorities, DWPI is further enhancing its leadership in covering patents from Asia.

New authority — MALAYSIA covers all Granted patents and Utility Models published from January 2010. Records identified as basic have a DWPI title and abstract, with manual codes applied as required. Deep indexing (Markush, DCR, Polymer and Fragmentation coding) will be applied to records classified in the relevant Chemical Patent Index Manual Codes (CPI) sections. Patent citations from Malaysia are also included in the Patents Citation Index (PCI) (File 342).

Enhanced coverage — RUSSIA now covers Russian Applications (RU A) and Utility Models (RU U), adding to the existing coverage of Russian Granted Patents in the file. Any of the new records identified as basic includes a DWPI title and abstract, DWPI manual coding and chemical indexing (deep indexing) where applicable. Coverage started with records published in January 2010. Russian patent citations are also included in the Patents Citation Index (PCI).

 

A Proximal and a Distal Tip
by Ron Kaminecki, MS, CPL, JD, director, IP segment, U.S. patent attorney

Digging a bit deeper into the tool bag
Ever use a tool for a purpose for which it was not intended? Many people have used a screwdriver to pry a bent nail stuck in wood or a wrench to pound in a new nail, but these are generally not good ideas. I recall trying to fix a nut on a bicycle (yes, I will bypass the obvious joke here but you can think of someone you don’t like who rides a bike) that had been stripped because someone tried to jam a standard nut onto a metric bolt. However, there are some tools, like Swiss Army^® knives or LEATHERMAN^® Multi-Tools, which are designed for multitasking and are quite useful if you know how to use them. One of my favorite applications of non-intended use was using a large piece of wood to pound a nail into another piece of wood — something karmic about that!

In last month’s column, I mentioned the use of a dictionary database (here, CHEMSEARCH™ File 398) to look up a chemical name, and then using the MAP command to move the CAS^® Registry Numbers found there into a database that has both CAS Registry numbers and patent numbers.

If you look up the CAS Registry numbers in a database that has both CAS Registry numbers and patent numbers (like CA Search^®: Chemical Abstracts^® File 399), you can then extract patent numbers to search a patent database like Derwent World Patents Index^® (File 351). While this may sound complicated, what you are doing is taking advantage of two databases that have two links each — a chemical dictionary file with both chemical names and CAS Registry numbers and a bibliographic file with both CAS Registry numbers and patent numbers. So, you use these two databases to convert a chemical name into a CAS Registry number and that into a patent number, thus bridging the gap between chemical names and patent numbers. This technique is referred to as The Bridge for this reason. Contact me directly at for an example.

While many of you may not search chemical information, this same type of re-use of data found in one database to search another can be extremely useful outside of chemical research.

• To find patent assignees in a patent database, start in a business information database like Disclosure Database^® (File 101), to look up parent and subsidiary companies, and then use them to get a better picture of how many patents a legal entity like a company owns.

• Because patent databases tend not to have thesauri, use a database with a thesaurus to locate search terms first, and then use these search terms in a patent database. For example, before searching medical/biological terms in patent files, use MEDLINE^® (File 154) or Embase^® (File 73) or even BIOSIS Previews^® (File 5) to locate terminology dealing with your topic as the drafters of patents may have used these files to find descriptors for their inventions.

• Look up DUNS Numbers in D&B — Dun’s Electronic Business Directory (File 515), and then use MAP to carry them into ABI/INFORM^® (File 15) to supplement a search by company name to find potential prior art.

Will he ever stop bloviating?
I could go on, but will save some of these ideas for future columns. However, whenever you are struggling to find something, pick up a different tool and see if you can use it. One of the neatest examples is looking for patents given a trademark. Typically, searching for trademarks in patent files is not recommended because the use of such a name will only find mentions of the product rather than the patent that covers the product. This is often because the patent precedes the trademark, so there is usually no mention of the trademark in the very patent that covers it. However, our friends at Innography have actually indexed U.S. trademarks with international patent classes (IPC)! In most cases, trademarks are indexed only using one of 45 international trademark classes. However, by using the hundreds of thousands of classes found in the IPC, Innography is able to link patents with trademarks and vice versa.

Dialog is not a social Web site, but you can still find these
Relationships can show a potential of something that is very hard to find: licenses. That is, look up a trademark; use the IPCs to find related patents; then compare the assignee of the patents with the owner of the trademarks. If they do match, check the patents in depth to see how close the two filings are and determine if what is claimed in the patent could be covered by the trademark. If the patent assignee and the trademark owner do not match, there are three alternatives: (a) there may be a potential license between the two entities; (b) one entity may be infringing the other’s rights; or (c) there may be no relationship. While this may sound a bit trite, given these three possibilities, the results of such a search could be very useful in business intelligence as the possibility of a friendly or unfriendly relationship as in (a) or (b) is incredibly useful and the lack of a relationship as in (c) may still be a potential business opportunity.

Which did you give for Christmas?
You will be seeing more and more of this cross-pollination of data found in one file used to search other files similar to tools, like LEATHERMAN Multi-tools, which are made to work in different applications. And, yes, I did find a number of LEATHERMAN Multi-Tools trademarks linked to hand-tool patents using IPCs. Surprisingly enough, a lot of the Swiss Army knife trademarks looked more like licenses than organic products from the trademark owner’s patent portfolio because there were few patents that covered the trademarked products. Interesting how trademarks can lead you to patents that can then link you to possible products and even company strategies, thus making something like a metal hand tool even more useful as a source of competitive information. Not too bad for something found in a toolbag.

 

 Learn about ProQuest

Hoover’s Company Records available to corporate researchers
Qualified professional business searchers can now add Hoover’s™ Company Records to their ABI/INFORM^® and ProQuest Central services. Featuring premium profiles of more than 44,000 companies, 600 industries and 225,000 key executives, this valuable resource provides easy access to the most thorough and up-to-date business information available.

The file contains:

How does it work?
With Intellidocs™ technology searchers can link from articles in ProQuest^® to Hoover’s Company Records, which is updated continually with the most current information. For example, it identifies and hyperlinks all mentioned company names, so when you click a company link, Hoover’s data for that company immediately displays.

For information on subscribing to Hoover’s Company Records, contact your Dialog account manager or click here. Some corporate restrictions apply.