Intellogist:FAQ

From Intellogist

We are Intellogist: a group of editors creating objective, subjective, and critical content regarding the world of prior art searching. Our website is hosted by Landon IP, the global leader in professional patent searching. Here at Intellogist, our team members consist of editors with years of prior art searching experience as well as experience with many different patent information systems.

We created Intellogist to serve the needs of the prior art searching community. Features such as coverage maps, search system comparisons, in-depth search system reviews, resource directories, and best practices articles can help the prior art searching community find the answers they need in order to satisfy their important questions. In addition, opening up Intellogist for community contributions through our community reports and discussion forum lets the prior art searching community directly interact and assist each other.

Why are you currently offering your site for free? What is the catch?

We're currently offering the site for free because we want everyone to benefit from the available content and contribute to the site to make it even better. We want the community to be a big part of this site, and the best way to do that is to get people excited about the great content we have already.

The catch is that for the site to remain free, we need to fund it through sponsorships. The more people visit our site and the more content they contribute, the more worthwhile it will be for sponsors to come on board and keep the site free for everyone out there. Recommend us to a friend, contribute to the site, tell us how to improve and help us keep it free!

If you're interested in sponsoring Intellogist, please Contact Us.

I heard Intellogist is associated with Landon IP. What does Landon IP do? What makes Landon IP a credible source?

That's true, Intellogist is a website created by Landon IP, the global leader in professional patent searching.

The content editors behind Intellogist are Landon IP employees with years of prior art searching experience as well as experience with various patent information systems. This previous experience as well as input from industry leaders means that Intellogist is a credible source with:

the diligence to collect and verify objective information
the expertise to give informed subjective opinions
the knowledge to make fair criticisms
and the ability to present all of the above in a helpful and straightforward manner

Who is PRG? Is Intellogist associated with PRG?

Patent Resources Group (PRG) is a company that has taught patent law to over 40,000 patent attorneys, agents, engineers, and scientists. As leaders in patent law and continuing legal education, PRG hosts courses and produces books and publications to serve the needs of its customers.

Intellogist is associated with PRG through our parent company Landon IP. Intellogist has the ability to work with some of the nation's foremost patent law experts through PRG, which results in an even more informed and valuable site.

What social networking tools do you participate in?

First, Intellogist itself is a social networking tool! Once you register on the site, you will be given an opportunity to fill out your personal profile, and to connect with other users. You will be able to see your points and awards accumulate on your profile page as you participate on the site and make connections. To learn more about our social networking features, see our User Profile page.

Also, you can follow Intellogist on Twitter! See our account at http://twitter.com/Intellogist. We tweet about recent updates to search tools, and any changes or new features on the Intellogist website, as well as topics of general interest to prior art searchers. We also love participating in any hot search discussions of the day. Join the conversation!

In addition, Intellogist maintains a Delicious account, at http://delicious.com/Intellogist. In our account, you can find over 100 bookmarks related to global patent search products and data coverage information. We will continue to add valuable prior art search resources to the account. We hope you'll add us to your Delicious network to stay up-to-date on the latest useful search sites!

Questions About How to Use the Site

What is the recommended browser for viewing the site?

We have optimized the site to run on Internet Explorer 6 or later and Firefox 3 or later.

What is the recommended screen resolution for viewing the site?

Intellogist is optimized for viewing at 1024 x 768 resolution.

How do I navigate the site?

From the Main Page, you have several options. The large icons in the middle of the page will take you directly to the various sections of the site: the Intellogist Reports, the Interactive Patent Coverage Map , the Best Practices, the Quick Table Comparisons, and the Resource Finder. Additionally, the navigation bar at the top of every page can take you directly to the sections above as well as our Forum and Contact Us page.

What part of the website should I go to first?

That depends on the kind of information you’re interested in!

If you want to know every detail of a specific search system, our Intellogist Reports are for you. For a quick comparison of two or more systems, try our Quick Table Comparisons. If you need to know which systems have coverage for a specific country, our Interactive Patent Coverage Map will help. Our Resource Finder is a great tool for finding new resources in a specific technical area. Finally, if you’re new to patent searching or have questions about the process, our Best Practices section can answer them.

How do I find out what systems provide coverage for my country of interest?

Our Interactive Patent Coverage Map can answer your question. You can click on the country on the map, or choose it from the list of countries on the left, and the Interactive Patent Coverage Map will display a list of systems with coverage in that country, organized by level of coverage.

What are Intellogist Reports?

Intellogist Reports are our carefully researched, highly detailed reviews of patent and non-patent information systems. Each report is written by an individual editor with expertise in the relevant field, and updated with new information whenever possible. In each report, we point out the advantages and disadvantages of a given system from the perspective of a patent search professional. If you’re interested in an in-depth look at an individual system, our Intellogist Reports are the right tool for you.

What is the difference between a Community Report and a Glossary Article?

Community Reports and Glossary articles are the two main sections of the site featuring contributions from the community. Simply put, Community Reports are for free or commercial search products, as well as tools often used to support prior art search processes. Examples of topics treated as Community Reports could include Agricola (a data file), Scitopia (a search platform), or BizIntSmartCharts (a workflow and reporting tool). Glossary articles are for more abstract search-related terms and concepts such as “patent families” or “stemming.” We welcome you to add your expertise and knowledge!

When creating Community Reports or Glossary articles, special category tags must be used on these pages to ensure they appear in the appropriate Intellogist directory. For more information about creating new pages in Intellogist, please see our help documentation on Community Reports and Glossary articles.

What does the Interactive Patent Coverage Map do?

If your searches are directed to patent collections from a specific country, the Interactive Patent Coverage Map is the place to go. By clicking on the country of interest, you can view a list of the various databases and search systems that provide coverage there. The results are separated by their level of coverage, and a link to the country’s official patent authority has been provided where possible.

What is the difference between the Coverage Maps available with system reports and the Interactive Patent Coverage Map?

If you are interested in a specific country and you want to know which systems offer coverage of that country, the Interactive Patent Coverage Map is the fastest way to get that information. If you’re interested in a specific system, and you want to get an idea of what countries the system covers, the Coverage Maps available with our Intellogist Reports will display that information as a convenient graphic. To view these maps, select the tab marked "Coverage Map" which appears at the top of the page for any Intellogist Report.

What are Best Practices, and how can I use that section of the site?

The Best Practices section of Intellogist is our repository of information about the patent searching process. People of all levels of skill and experience can go there to find current information relevant to conducting a patent search. If you feel that you have valuable contributions to make, please register for an account and add your knowledge to the collective!

How do I use Quick Table Comparisons?

For quickly contrasting multiple search systems, use our Quick Table Comparisons. From the initial menu, check one or more systems, and click “Compare.” Our system will generate a detailed table comparing important points about the selected systems, allowing you to make informed decisions faster.

How do I use Resource Finder?

With Resource Finder, you can broaden the scope of your search by considering new resources in your technical area. From the left pane, you can select a subject area from an extensive list with multiple, increasingly specific sublevels. Once you’ve chosen the most appropriate topic, it will display several lists of resources broken down by the type of resource: Search Systems, Databases, Publications, or Websites.

In an upcoming enhancement to the tool, if you find a resource you especially like, you will be able to give it a "star." Resources with the most stars will be called “Community Favorites,” allowing you to see the most popular sources at a glance.

How can I use the site to connect with other users?

You can see a summary of registered user on Intellogist on our Community Page. After you sign up for the service, fill out your User Profile. If you have questions for another user, you can leave a message for that person on their profile's message board. You can also add a user as your "friend" via a link on that user's profile page.

After becoming a registered user on Intellogist, the first thing you should do is add the official Intellogist user as your friend. This way, you can stay up-to-date with new developments - the Intellogist account will post a message on your user board whenever a major update occurs to the site. If you would like to receive these notices on your user board but not via e-mail, you can control your e-mail notification settings via your Preferences page.

Contacting Us

How can I advertise on your site?

There are two ways to advertise on Intellogist:

You may sponsor the site on a monthly basis, during which your ad will appear on the home page.
You may purchase advertising space in other areas on the site. We will work with you to determine the placement that works best.

For more information on sponsoring Intellogist, please fill out our Contact Us form and we will contact you promptly to help meet your needs.

I am a decision-maker researching the various patent search systems. In addition to your reviews, do you provide consulting services to help me make a decision?

Yes, Intellogist provides fee-based consulting services tailored to individual company needs. For more information on how we can work with you to aid your decision making process, please Contact Us.

I am an employee for one of the systems you have reviewed. What is the best way for me to contact you about changes and new features being made to our system?

Thank you for your interest! We encourage any information about current or future system updates. We also welcome advance previews of system updates, if available.

The best way to contact us about system updates is through the Contact Us form.

I created a new search system and would like to let your site see and review it before it goes live. Can I do this? If so, how?

Thank you for your interest! We encourage any information about new search systems, and welcome the opportunity to review your system in advance.

The best way to contact us about an advance preview is through the Contact Us form. Please include as much detail as possible about your new system!

Questions About Our Content

Who are the Intellogist Reports written for?

Our reports are written for you. Anybody with any level of interest and expertise in patent search systems will find plenty of answers in each report. Whether you’re looking for coverage information, interface details, or helpful usage tips, we have it. That said, patent search experience will help you get the most value out of a report. We recommend our Best Practices section for readers who want to improve their general patent searching expertise.

How do you obtain access to the systems you review?

With the exception of free services like Google Patent Search, our access comes from free trials generously granted by the system providers themselves. Any limitations of the trial accounts will be specifically mentioned as such in the report.

Where do you get your data coverage information?

The majority of our coverage information comes from the documentation provided by system. In addition, our editors may make inferences about coverage based on their knowledge of current patent data products on the market. In some cases, the editors may test the system to ensure that stated coverage seems to match what is available during actual, practical use. Should there be a gap between the two, we will describe the apparent discrepancy in the report.

What are your editors’ qualifications?

All of our editors are patent search professionals with practical experience conducting quality searches. From that solid foundation, we have deepened our knowledge by investigating and evaluating numerous search systems.

How do you ensure your reviews are objective?

Our reviews are a mix of objective and subjective content. Our editorial policy is that you deserve to know which is which, so we have taken several steps to ensure that the division is clear. For most sections of a report, subjective commentary is restricted to clearly marked “Editor’s Notes.” For the few sections that are entirely subjective, a statement to that effect is included at the top of the page. Each report undergoes several passes by different editors to ensure that all content outside those two locations is objective and accurate. If you feel that something you’re reading is too subjective, please contact us and tell us what you think.

Update Policies

How often are existing reports updated?

Our content editors regularly reexamine and update our reports. The date of the most recent update will always be displayed on the System Data (or File Data) page of each Intellogist report (see the Delphion System Data page for an example). If a major system upgrade is released between the scheduled update periods for the Intellogist article, details about the new system features will be placed on the report’s Major Recent Updates page (example). These changes, along with any other modifications or corrections that are made to the articles, will also be logged on each article's Revisions page (example). Registered users may "watch" the Revisions page to be notified of any changes to the article or new features of the search product, or they may choose to watch the Major Recent Updates page to be notified only when new product features are released. See our Help page on "watching" articles for more information.

Will you be adding more reports?

We intend our coverage to be as comprehensive as possible, and part of that goal is adding new reports. Our criteria for determining what systems we cover are available on our Criteria for Intellogist Articles page. If we have not covered a system of interest to you, remember that you can always add any information you find to an existing community article, or even create your own page to help other users interested in the same system or topic. See How to Edit a Page for information on how to edit a community article, and see Starting a New Page for information on how to create a new wiki article on Intellogist.

How do I receive notifications when Intellogist is updated?

If you are interested in a specific system or Intellogist Report, you can place a "watch" on the report to be notified when any changes are made to it. This is done by selecting the "watch this page" tab that appears on the top of each Intellogist page. We recommend "watching" the Major Recent Updates page of the report if you are only interested in updates to the particular system; in addition, we recommend "watching" the Revisions page of the article to be notified when changes are made to any part of the report. When "watching" pages, any changes that are made to this pages will be shown in your "watchlist," which can be accessed when you are logged in via the link in the upper right hand corner of the site. You can control whether you are notified by e-mail when changes are made, via your Intellogist Preferences page. You can access this page by selecting the "my preferences" hyperlink that appears on the upper right corner of the site when you are logged in, and selecting the tab for "watchlist" preferences.

In addition, if you would like to be notified of all major developments on the site, the first thing you should do after registering is add the official Intellogist user as your friend. This way, you can stay up-to-date with new developments - the Intellogist account will post a message on your user board whenever a major update occurs to the site. If you would like to receive these notices on your user board but not via e-mail, you can control your e-mail notification settings via your Profile Preferences page.

Questions on User Contributions

How do I suggest that a system or file be reviewed?

We choose our systems and files to review based on a number of factors including popularity, availability, and uniqueness. More detailed criteria can be found in our Critera for Intellogist Articles.

Prior to recommending a system, please use Intellogist's Search bar to see if any information on a specific system is available within Intellogist. If a Community Report already exists for your topic, feel free to edit it and contribute to the site. For further information, see our help documentation on Community Reports.

To recommend a system, use the Contact Us form. In your message, please include the name of the system, the URL for the system website, and a description of any features you think make the system special or unique.

I disagree with a point made in one of the articles (or I noticed some information in an article is incorrect). How do I alert the editors to these issues?

We welcome any discussion or fact checking that our users might bring to us. For this purpose discussion pages exist for each section of the articles, just like many other wiki services. To contribute to the discussion about a search system or an Intellogist article, use the Intellogist Forum.

The Forum exists to support healthy dialogs about our articles and products we have reviewed, so we ask that you refrain from posting purposely inflammatory or malicious statements about Intellogist or the system in question. If you would like to ask us to reconsider the material in our article, please use the Contact Us form to suggest that the system be re-reviewed. Please include as much detail as possible so that we can address your concern thoroughly.

Can I obtain a printable copy of an Intellogist Report or a Quick Table Comparison?

We would be happy to provide you with printable PDF versions of any of our Reports or Quick Tables for a small fee. We can also mail you hard copies of the reports for an additional shipping and materials fee.

Please contact us with your request, and we will respond quickly with more information. Please include the following in your request:

For printable copies of Intellogist Reports, please provide the names of the reports that you are interested in.

For printable copies of Quick Table Comparisons, please note that a maximum of three systems may be included in a single printable report at this time. Please provide detailed information about which systems you would like to compare, and if there are more than three systems, please specify which combinations of three that you are most interested in.

How do I recommend a resource for Resource Finder?

The ability to recommend resources directly to a Resource Finder specific online drop box will be available in the future. For now, please feel free to use the Contact Us form to recommend a resource. Please include as much detail as possible to help us investigate your resource appropriately.

How can I add content to Intellogist?

You can contribute by giving feedback on systems via our Ratings pages (example), posting in our Forums, adding to our existing Best Practices, Community Reports, and Glossary articles, or creating your own Best Practices page, Community Report, or Glossary article (more info on how to create a new topic can be found in Starting a New Page).

Intellogist Reports are locked for editing by the public; this is done to preserve the extensive work put into these articles by the Intellogist staff.

Can Intellogist editors change or edit my contributions?

Yes. We value the contributions of our community, and we do our best to ensure that all the content that appears on the site meets our community's high standards and expectations. To that end, Intellogist editors will remove anything that duplicates existing content, infringes any copyrights, or is obvious marketing material of no substance. Obviously, we will also be policing entries for any offensive or off-topic content. For more information about editing Intellogist articles, please see our help topic on How to Edit a Page.

How do I edit a wiki?

Intellogist is based on MediaWiki. For more information on how to edit articles in MediaWiki, see our help documentation on How to Edit a Page.