The apparent ease with which it has become possible to retrieve an international patent document on the Internet can be attributed, in large part, to the ground-breaking work of Dr. Stephen Boyer of IBM. In the relatively early days of the Internet, Stephen was a founding creator of the IBM Intellectual Property Network, which later became known as Delphion (subsequently acquired by Thomson Reuters). The creation of this full-text database was a vast undertaking due to the huge amount of data involved. It was the first time that U.S and international patent documents had been made widely available electronically on a single platform. This initiative fundamentally changed the way people searched and accessed patent information globally, and required the unprecedented liaison between the USPTO, WIPO, the EPO and various national patent offices.
Before the IBM patent database went online, most people had limited access to patent information, apart from the professional searching of indexed databases, or visiting the patent office public search rooms. The patent world was quickly turned on its head, as full text information was suddenly made available to anyone with a computer, and for free! It is for these reasons, as well as Dr. Boyer’s other key accomplishments that he has been named as the International Patent Information Award recipient for 2014.
The IPI-Award announcement was made at the International Patent Information Conference, IPI-ConfEx in Berlin, Germany, on March 3, 2014 by Ms. Lucy Akers, Chair of the International Selection Board, IPI-Award founder and sponsor, Mr. Ford Khorsandian, President of Technology & Patent Research (TPR) International along with fellow Selection Board members present: Dr. Monika Hanelt, Dr. Tsutomu Kiryama and Mr. Aalt van De Kuilen.
The IPI Award was established in 2000 to recognize and celebrate key individuals whose dedication has had a significant and lasting impact on patent information. Sponsor TPR International is a world-leading search firm with more than 18 years of expertise in successfully completing thousands of patent searching projects in all areas of technology.
For further information, visit www.IPI-Award.com