The Dolcera Blog

Ranking makes life easier. Be it top 10 companies, top 10 universities to study technology or to choose amongst top 10 sci-fi movies you want to watch on the weekends; ranking allow us to choose the best amongst the available. Time saver, decision influencer and extremely helpful are the ranked material.

At Dolcera, we thought of applying the ranking methodology to patents. We have ranked patents based on a variety of parameters. First factor amongst all remains the client focus, second, sufficiency of disclosed information in patents and third credibility of a patent to perform the same process/art with higher efficiency than any other patent with similar focus.

Let us consider an example, the first table in the image below show patents with similar focus of decreasing tumor volume using RNA interference (RNAi). The patent one has disclosed maximum information in this area and in addition to the desired data, it has also published a lot more supporting information derived from other experiments. Further, as the rank goes down the percentage decrease in tumor volume decreases. Some may argue that patent 2 has disclosed more decrease in tumor volume than patent 1 but then patent 1 has disclosed more supporting data, taking its overall weighted score higher. Of course, if the client is still interested only in comparing tumor volume, patent at rank 2 will come at rank 1. Hence the ranking is customized to suit the client requirements.

The ranking of patents is not that simple as it may sound. The analysis team has to encounter challenges and figure out the ways to overcome them. Graphs, charts, instrumental outputs etc. will not give you data in percentages which can be just copy-pasted to compare. They have to be calculated first using mathematical tools which may vary from calculating areas under the graphs or applying differentiation & integration on instrumental outputs, to allow the reader to compare results before making the final decision. It’s considered an absolute value add to the decision making process by the clients who have sought such a service from us.

Not all experimental data will be quantitative. For people familiar with biotechnology would know that there are experiments (such as gel electrophoresis, staining etc.) that give qualitative or quasi-quantitative results. I am sure, the same will hold true with other technology fields too. Second part of the figure above summarizes few patents which can not be ranked as there is no data yield from such experiments and hence comparison is not possible. But then why miss them? We provide a Dolcera summary table which will give reader an idea as these experiments were atleast conducted and disclosed in patents. This comparison will thus strengthen the decision to be taken from ranking matrices discussed above.

This systemic approach of collecting, sorting, analyzing, and finally ranking the data has the following advantages:

1. Saves time!
2. Easy comparative analysis.
3. Helps in competitive watch
4. Decision on in-and-out licensing can be made.
5. Strong baseline for future scientific investigations.

Who will be benefited?

Scientific community: Extensive experimental data, comparison matrix of data from different patents with same focus is a feast to researchers and scientists as it helps them to choose best technologies.

Patent attorneys: Allows competitor watch, supports their decision on in and out licensing.

Venture capitalists / investors: Patent ranking based on disclosed information helps investors to decide patents to further invest upon.

Which technology fields are covered?

Patents in all the technological fields can be ranked. You just need to tell us the focus area and we will rank the patents for you. The ranking and weighing scores can be customized to suit user’s requirements.

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The discovery of RNA interference (RNAi) is one of the transforming events in biology. Gene silencing agents such as small interfering RNA (siRNA), micro RNA (miRNA) and small synthetic oligo-nucleotides (DNA, RNA or DNA-RNA complex) lead to target specific RNAi. We aim at building a one-stop comprehensive database of RNAi agents patented or described in scientific literature.Dolcera has provision to customize the database against the target gene suiting client’s requirement. Till now, RNAi agents against some of the important cancer target genes are updated to the database and the trial access is available on request. These genes include bcl2, myc (c-myc, n-myc), ras (k-ras, h-ras, n-ras), VEGF, STAT3 etc. RNAi agents can be extracted and added to the database based on client’s interest.

Dolcera RNAi database can prove helpful:

• For scientific community: RNAi agent sequences aligned to target genes, extensive experimental data and comparison matrix of data from different patents with same focus.  
• For patent attorneys: Competitor watch, assignee vs. number of publications graphs, timeline based on application and publication dates.
• For venture capitalists/ Investors: Patent ranking based on disclosed information, data useful for decision making.

Salient features of the database:

1. Interactive maps of taxonomy: 4 levels of in depth classification of patents and scientific literature allow both “bird’s-eye view” and “in-depth views” of technologies.
2. Patent and non patent dashboard: Grouping specific elements into more general categories is conceptually easier and cleaner than entertaining hundreds of specific elements separately. Dolcera dashboard has a friendly user interface. It groups the patents according to the taxonomy, patent numbers, publications and application dates at the click of a button.
3. Sequence Dashboard: The tool not only aligns all patented/ non patented siRNA/ miRNA sequences to the target gene but allow user to see the sequence related information on a simple click of the mouse.
4. Experimental matrix: Experimental data be it quantitative (eg. % inhibition of target mRNA expression) or qualitative (eg. gel blots) are compared amongst patent document with similar focuses. This allows users to compare literature with same focus. The ranking of documents can also be done based on scoring matrices, which allows user to read the most relevant patent first.

 For database related inquiries or free demo call us at, Phone: +1-650-269-7952 (US) and  +91-40-6451-0832 (India). You can also email us at info@dolcera.com

To read more about RNAi database click here

To visit Dolcera’s website and to explore more patent/ IP related services click here

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