A new internet launch, SparkIP is an a new online intellectual property exchange for connecting the scientific community with patent information. Described as a “visually rich, categorizing information into a fully-searchable innovation landscape of over 35,000 SparkClusters(TM), self-organizing and self-naming groups of patents and new inventions.” As new innovation is submitted, SparkIP’s arrangement of clusters reorganizes to reflect the growing body of information.
For example, a search of “carbon” shows 1000 patents in 416 clusters. Selecting one cluster, carbon coated silicon, reveals 119 patents in 42 clusters, e.g., silicon nitride ceramics. You can eventually get down to the specific patent information for review.
SparkIP is meant to be used by licensors, licensees, universities, government labs, patent attorneys and individual inventors to help identify new opportunities for collaboration and as a way to understand the state of the art.
While cluster searching is not new, this is unique in providing patent searching groups of related patents in such a visual way. It will take some time to see if it grows to contain all the patent art or just the art submitted. We recommend you take some time to play around with searching to get a grasp of it’s potential.
