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Updated: Jul 20, 2004 |
Citation Link is an analytical tool that reveals a patent's citations in a graphical map, using multiple visualization techniques. From a target patent, you can review either forward or backward references, or both at once. And you can display your analysis in a citation tree or timeline with one-, five- or 10-year increments.
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Use Citation Link to analyze citations (references) for US Granted and US Applications.
Citation Link allows you to plot relationships by key bibliographic fields and control a variety of display attributes for easier analysis. The sophisticated visualization technology gives you a clear understanding of a patent's full reference history. With Citation Link, you can instantly find out if an invention is key to an industry or see if competitors are following your lead.
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Scenario: You are an inventor. Two years ago you were awarded a patent for a subcutaneous glucose electrode. You have an idea how you might improve on that invention and take the technology one step further. Before you can get funding to continue your work, you need to prove this is a viable, fruitful area for development. To prove this, you need to see what work has been done in this area since your patent was granted. And you need to know who is doing that work — they will be your competitors.
- Using Citation Link, you analyze your own patent and choose to look at forward-only citations to focus just on other patents citing yours.
- The assignee view reveals the names of the competitors citing your patent.
- You use color-coding to customize the Citation Link display so you can tell at a glance how many competitors there are and how many patents each competitor has filed.
- You hide your own citations (you citing your own patent) to simplify the view.
- You also hide a specific competitor's patents because you know they're not a threat to your project.
- You save the set of patents you have been examining as a Work File for later investigation.
- You save the customized image for inclusion in the funding proposal you are preparing.
Your proposal is a winner and you receive funding for your project.
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Scenario: You are a patent attorney. Your client owns a patent covering wireless technology that protects the Company's core product. The Company is currently involved in patent infringement litigation in which the patent is claimed invalid because of pre-existing prior art.
- To support the patent's validity, you use Citation Link to review the references cited in your client's patent, as well as the references cited by those, to establish the state of the art at the time of the invention.
- You choose the 5-year timeline view to break the work into manageable chunks.
- You color-code the patents by IPC code to provide an easy-to-read map of the state of the art at the time of your client's patent.
- Once the color-coding is done, you go back and forth between the Show, Hide and Trim views to better understand how technology development has branched over time — and to eliminate the patents that are not relevant so you can focus on those that are most in scope to your review.
- With the review complete, you save the image for possible inclusion in courtroom exhibits.
- In addition, all relevant patent documents are saved as a Work File for later retrieval.
Based on the depth of your review and the clarity of your supporting documentation, you are able to provide an effective case for the novelty of your client's patent and support its validity.
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Citation Link works best with a screen resolution set to 1024 x 768 (or higher).
Citation Link is designed for a Windows desktop environment and the following browsers: Internet Explorer 5.0 or above.
Citation Link requires a Java TM 1.3 or higher plug-in (the most current release of the plug-in is 1.4).
If you have the plug-in, Citation Link will open in your browser centered on the specified patent.
If you do not have the required Java plug-in installed, when you click to access Citation Link, you will be automatically taken to the Sun Microsystems, Inc. website to begin the installation process. If you are not automatically taken to the Sun Microsystems website to download the plug-in, you can go there directly: http://java.sun.com/getjava/download.html. See Installing the Java plug-in in the Delphion Help Center for additional information.
The first time you use Citation Link the system will automatically download a series of "jar" files. This will only happen once and will not be required the next time you use Citation Link.
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Access Citation Link from the Tools area at the top of the Delphion Integrated View of the patent for
which you want to analyze citations.
Citation Link will open displaying a Citation Tree showing forward and backward citations (references)
for the specified patent.
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The orange node represents the target patent that is being analyzed. Connecting lines identify reference relationships between the nodes.
The nodes to the left of the target patent are backward references (backward citations). Backward references are patents that the target patent has cited. When more than one generation is displayed, backward references can have other nodes to their left, representing the set of patents that they cite.
The nodes to the right of the target patent are forward references (forward citations). Forward references are patents that cite the target patent. When more than one generation is displayed, forward references can have other nodes to their right, representing the set of patents that cite them.
The circled numbers on the left end of each node indicate the number of backward references for that patent, and the numbers on the right end indicate the number of forward references for that patent.
The text on the node changes depending on the Label Displayed. When only a portion of the text appears on the node, you can pause on a node with your cursor, and a box will appear displaying the rest of the text.
You can also click on any node in the map to view bibliographic information about the patent in the Patent Data display area below the map. When you click on a node, it is highlighted in yellow and direct links connected to that node are highlighted in red. The corresponding row in the Display Attributes table is also highlighted in light blue. The highlighting will remain until you select a different node.
Some nodes may have colored outlines that designate special situations:
Green (will only appear if the Duplicates box is checked): Indicates that the node is a duplicate. Duplicates occur when a specific patent is referenced at multiple generations in the map. The original node will show descendants at subsequent generations. Duplicate nodes will not show any descendants.
Red: Indicates that the patent set is incomplete because the Citation Link map is limited to 2,000 patents. The map is cut off at this node, so it does not show any descendants. In determining which nodes are outlined in red, priority is given to nodes closer to the target patent. Thus, patents at the first generation are more likely to have their complete set of descendants than patents at the fifth generation, which are more likely to be incomplete and have red outlines. One way to reduce the number of patents in a map is to change the Citation Direction to either Forward Only or Backward Only.
To create a new Citation Link map using another patent in the map as the new target of your analysis, double-click on the node.
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The Citation Link mapping controls, options, and displays are shown to the right and under the main diagram display area of your screen. They include:
Overview of the different areas of the Citation Link screen:
Name/Options
|
Description/Action
|
Map Type
(drop-down)
- Citation Tree (initial default)
- Timeline - 1 Year
- Timeline - 5 Year
- Timeline - 10 Year
|
Indicate the type of citation map you want displayed.
Examples of the map types:
Citation Tree
1-Year Timeline
5-Year Timeline
10-Year Timeline
|
Label Displayed
(drop-down)
- Title (initial default)
- Patent Number
- Assignee
- Inventor(s)
- IPC Class
- National Class
- Assignee Country
|
Indicate the field that you want displayed for each patent shown on the citation map. This allows you to focus your analysis on different aspects of the patents.
Note 1: As the label is changed, in addition to changing the display on the diagram, it also changes the labels in the Display Attributes table. This allows you to change additional display attributes — see Label, Color, and View under Display Attributes.
Note 2: If data is not available for a specific patent based on the label displayed, the node will show "~N/A~" for not available, followed by the patent number (for example: ~N/A~ US01888855)
|
Citation Direction
(drop-down)
- Forward and Backward (initial default)
- Forward Only
- Backward Only
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Indicate the patents you want to see:
Forward Only - patents that cite the target patent
Backward Only - patents that are cited by the target patent
Forward and Backward - both
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Generations Displayed
(drop-down)
- One Generation (default)
- Two Generations
- Three Generations
- All Generations
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Indicate the number of reference levels (generations) you want to display. The selected setting applies to both forward and backward citations in the map. |
Note: Initial default values shown above apply to your first Citation Link session. When beginning a subsequent Citation Link session, all Display Options except Generations Displayed will be retained from your prior session. For optimal performance, Generations Displayed will always return to the default setting, One Generation, at the beginning of each new session.
Name/Options
|
Description/Action
|
Links
(checkbox)
- Checked - Yes (initial default)
- Unchecked - No
|
Check box to display the lines connecting nodes in the map.
Uncheck box for a clearer view on a large maps (especially useful for Timeline Map Types).
Note: Clicking on a node on a map causes the direct links connected to that node to turn red, regardless of whether or not the Links box is checked. |
Duplicates
(checkbox)
- Checked - Yes
- Unchecked - No (initial default)
|
Check box to display all instances of patents that are referenced at multiple generations. Duplicate nodes are shown with a green outline. Uncheck box to hide duplicates.
Note: To quickly locate the "original" patent for a specific duplicate, first change the Label Displayed drop-down to Patent Number, and then click on the duplicate in the Display Attributes table. All matching nodes on the map will be highlighted in yellow. The original patent will be located closer to the target patent than its duplicates. |
Note: Initial default values shown above apply to your first Citation Link session. When beginning a subsequent Citation Link session, all Show Options will be retained from your prior session.
Name/Options
|
Description/Action
|
Selection Arrow
(default tool) |
Use arrow to choose a patent for further manipulation.
To see details:
Single-click a patent in the diagram to show its details in the Patent Data display area.
To change target of analysis:
Double-click a patent in the diagram to make it the new target of the analysis. A new Citation Link map will be generated. |
Zoom
(magnifying glass icon)
- Zoom in
- Zoom in repeatedly
- Zoom out
- Zoom out completely
|
To zoom in:
Single-click the Zoom button, the cursor changes to a cross-hair. On diagram, click and drag to draw box around area to be enlarged. Release mouse and selected area of diagram is enlarged.
To zoom in repeatedly:
Continue to redraw and release to continue enlarging.
To zoom out:
CTRL-click the Zoom button, the cursor changes to a cross-hair. On diagram, click and drag to draw box around area to be reduced. Release mouse and diagram is reduced.
To zoom out repeatedly:
Repeat CTRL-click, redraw, and release to continue reducing.
To zoom out completely (fit window):
Double-click Zoom button to zoom out completely. |
Print
(print icon)
|
Click to print diagram.
The printer dialog displays allowing you to select print options. |
Save
(disk icon)
|
Click to save diagram as a JPEG file.
Save as... dialog displays allowing you to specify file name and save location. |
Create Work File
(folder icon)
- Save only patents in current diagram
- Save all patents
|
Click to save patents from diagram as a Work File for later use. You will be asked to choose which set of patents to save:
Save only patents in current diagram - Only the patents shown in the diagram will become a part of the Work File — patents that have been hidden will not be a part of the Work File. Patents or entire branches can be hidden by selecting Hide from the View dropdown in the Display Attributes table or by unchecking the Show Duplicates checkbox.
Save all patents - Save up to 20,000 patents, including hidden references and duplicates, as well as descendants of red-outlined nodes which are not shown on the map because the 2,000 patent limit was exceeded.
The Create/Import Work File page displays allowing you to name, edit, and save your Work File. See Using Work Files in the Delphion Help Center for more information on creating Work Files. |
Name/Options
|
Description/Action
|
Apply to Branch
(checkbox)
- Checked - Yes
- Unchecked - No (initial default)
|
Check to make Color and View choices apply to an entire branch on a map. A branch consists of the selected node and all of its descendants. Example of a colored branch.
Note: The initial default link value applies to your first Citation Link. When beginning a subsequent session, your last selection will be retained from your prior session. |
Label
(This field is display only. Use Label Displayed drop-down box to select a different label to display.) |
Displays the data for the label type selected in the Label Displayed drop-down. Label data is shown in alphabetic or numeric order as appropriate.
Click an item to select it to change its color or view settings. When you select an item in the Display Attributes table, it is highlighted in light blue, and the corresponding nodes on in the main display area are highlighted in yellow.
Double-click an item to scroll through entire label, or overwrite a label name with a new one of your choice. The new name only appears in the Display Attributes table and disappears if the label display changes.
Note: If your current Label choice represents groups of patents (Assignee, Inventor, IPC Class, National Class or Assignee Country), then each unique instance of a label will only be represented once in the table. Color or show/hide changes will be applied to all nodes belonging to the group. Each instance, however, is still shown individually on the diagram in the main display area. |
Color
(drop-down)
- Gray (default)
- Black
- Blue
- Cyan
- Green
- Pink
- Red
- White
|
Choose to change the color of this patent or branch in the display.
Note 1: If your current Label choice represents groups of patents, then color-coding will apply to all members of that group. To treat each node individually, change Label Displayed to Patent Number and uncheck Apply to Branch.
Note 2: Color choices persist through Display Option changes and creating a new Citation Link map by double-clicking another node in a map. |
View
(drop-down)
|
Show:
Show this patent or group in the display.
Hide:
Hide this patent or group in the display.
Note 1: If your current label choice represents groups of patents, then showing/hiding will apply to all members of that group. To treat each node individually, change Label Displayed to Patent Number and uncheck Apply to Branch.
Note 2: View choices persist through Display Option changes and creating a new Citation Link map by double-clicking another node in a map. |
Displays in order (left to right), by patent number, the patents that have been the target patent during this Citation Link session.
Click a patent number in the History display to return to a previous Citation Link map with that patent as the target.
Full View:
Always displays the whole diagram. The purple-highlighted area shows which portion of the overall diagram is shown in the main display window.
When you zoom in on a large map, the purple box can be used to easily navigate the whole map. Click and drag the purple box to move to another section of the map. The new section will display in the main window.
Patent Data display:
The Patent Data display is located just under the main map display. Details shown here are for the target patent or for the patent most recently selected.
Fields shown are:
- Patent Number
- Title
- Inventor(s)
- Inventor City/State
- Inventor Country
- Assignee
- Assignee Country
- Issued Date
- Filed Date
- Application Number
- IPC Class
- National Class
- US References
Click the words "Link to Delphion Integrated View of (patent number)" to open the Delphion Integrated View for the selected patent in a new window.
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