A Fast and Scalable Algorithm for Prior Art Search

Companies and research institutes are acquiring monopolized technologies through patents to survive in a rapidly changing market. The applicant is guaranteed by law the exclusive right to the technology for a certain period. A prior art search is an essential task for this purpose. Therefore, the need for a successful prior art search is increasing. Previous studies have disadvantages because relevant fields are limited, requiring an in-depth understanding of specific technologies. This paper proposes a method to overcome these limitations using patent text and citation information. The proposed method searches for prior art using a citation network based on the shortest path derived from a breadth-first search. We examined based on experiments whether the proposed method could be applied to the industry. Based on the results, the proposed algorithm can efficiently search for prior art. Furthermore, it was possible to construct a counterstrategy based on the characteristics of the applicant. The code will be made available at github.com/lee-ju/k_step_PIC.