CIO Bulletin

Minesoft – Innovative global patent solutions provider

Due to the volume of patents, managing this information can be challenging. However, with the right tools patents are crucial for most industries to drive innovation, keep an eye on competition, and generate profits from your company’s ideas and inventions. Minesoft has developed a range of online patent search, analysis and monitoring products to give you and your corporation a competitive edge. The company has extensive experience in working with large collections of complex, worldwide patent data. We had a conversation with the executive board members of Minesoft to know more about the company. Here are the extracts of the interview.

What motivated you to establish a platform dedicated to patent solutions?

Minesoft was established in 1996 as an ideal way to combine both Ann Chapman’s and her husband Ophir Daniel’s skills in sci-tech publishing and computer programming. Initially, they worked closely with Questel-Orbit for about five years in marketing, sales, and product development before branching out with their own patent solutions in the first decade of 2000. Minesoft quickly gained market traction due to its innovative patent information products.

Since 2000, Minesoft has expanded its portfolio of innovative patent information products to include PatBase Express, PatentOrder, PatDocs, IPShare, Legal StatusTracker, Chemical Explorer, Pat-KM, APIs, and PatBase Analytics. The company has established offices in the UK, Germany, and the USA – with additional dedicated representatives representing every corner of the globe.

Tell us in brief about your knowledge management system.

Pat-KM is Minesoft’s unique knowledge management platform for innovative companies of any size. Unlike anything else in the market, Pat-KM can be tailored to suit the client’s exact specifications. The Minesoft development team, led by Ophir Daniel, works directly with the client to build a specialized solution to suit their workflow. Pat-KM delivers value-adding features to support patent information sharing across organizations. It can be effectively managed to create a central archive of patent information relevant to the organization to encourage collaboration.

How does your global patent solution stand apart from its competitors?

Minesoft has continually developed platforms to enable both professional searchers and business executives to quickly

gain the ability to answer business-critical questions in the timeliest manner. We have created a niche in the market by listening to our customers’ needs to shape our product development plans. Our customers are experts in the patent information field and often use Minesoft products on a day-to-day basis and share valuable feedback with us. As a dynamic company, we often make minor tweaks to products on the same day we receive feedback.

Minesoft’s unlimited customer support is a key service that helps Minesoft stand apart from competitors. The dedicated customer support team regularly publishes helpful guides, videos, and other resources for customers to refer to and host weekly training webinars, personalized training-on-demand online or in-person where possible.

Tell us in brief about your Intellectual Property (IP) Document Retrieval services.

Seeing a need in the market for a solution to automate time-consuming manual IP legal work, Ophir and his team worked with an expert patent agent in the US to develop PatDocs. PatDocs is a first-of-its-kind patent data platform for all IP professionals that utilizes proprietary artificial intelligence developed by Minesoft, designed to complement all advanced patent database search platforms such as PatBase.

Automated systems in our products help us to relieve the hefty workload of IP professionals. Minesoft offers solutions to professionals across the entire IP lifecycle, throughout R&D, Legal, and commercialization; this is what makes clients gravitate towards us. Our coverage is broad but uncompromising when it comes to quality.

PatDocs provides fully automated patent family trees, the ability to instantly create an auto-filled in SB-08 information disclosure document (ready for PTO submission), the ability to download any number of patent PDFs (in bulk or individually) within seconds, and the ability to create a sharable work product between colleagues or between inside and outside counsel.

How do Minesoft solutions help customers reduce wasted R&D expenditure?

Together Minesoft & RWS launched PatBase, a searchable database of patent documents designed by experts in the complex art of patent information research. Since its inception in 2003, PatBase has attracted over 70,000 users worldwide. The primary search tool has been built on a robust platform to help clients perform intuitive searches of global data and review, share, and analyze business-critical patent information that can propel business units to make better informed strategic decisions. The solution is easily deployable with free training from the Minesoft Support team in parallel with the client’s in-house team throughout the transition process.

Patents are often the first indication of innovation in a technology field. This makes PatBase an ideal tool to stay informed with, as alerts can be set up to notify users when a new family or publication is published, and search queries can be built and edited to suit expansive landscape research.

How does Minesoft stay innovative in the patent field?

Today, all users want easy-to-query databases and create everything from board-level presentations to detailed invalidity reports seamlessly. Search and analytics features need to allow users to quickly go from initial query to intelligent graphical output, just as quickly as creating search results ready to submit to worldwide patent offices. We have continually developed our platforms to enable both professional searchers and business executives to quickly gain the ability to answer business-critical questions in the timeliest manner. Ophir and his technical team strive to balance development cycles while listening to clients’ feedback. Whether it is a small or big update, Minesoft often collaborates with clients to build new solutions or adapt to user preferences.

What are some of Minesoft’s notable achievements?

In 2009 and again in 2015, Minesoft won the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise for outstanding achievement in rapidly growing export markets in the field of Intellectual Property (patent) Information. The firm’s continuous innovation has been instrumental in Minesoft being awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise for the second time in 2015. This coveted business award was given for impressive, sustained growth in International Trade. The company demonstrated outstanding achievement in rapidly growing export markets in Intellectual Property (patent) Information.

In 2019, Minesoft received national and international awards for Best Overall Company of the year (Regional Chamber of Commerce) and Legal Tech Company of the Year from ACQ5. Ophir Daniel received the award for UK Gamechanger of the Year from ACQ5 for his work developing a powerful new search engine for patBase, released in September 2020 to great acclaim.

About the Executive Board

The Minesoft in-house development team, with innovation driver Ophir Daniel at the helm, mobilizes Minesoft’s technical development. Directors Ann Chapman-Daniel, Rahman Hyatt, Jochen Lennhof (head of the German team), and Tim Campbell (head of the US office) are widely considered experts in the commercial side of IP, advising companies on their business and IP strategies and knowledge workflows. Minesoft’s global expansion over the years has enabled rapid growth in innovative strategies to help customers find the right tools in major industries around the world.