David Walsh is an information scientist at Pfizer, Sandwich, UK, engaged with the provision of chemical and patent information to medicinal chemists. He has over 30 years of experience in chemical information, primarily in the pharmaceutical industry, but also in the marketing of scientific databases. He is now involved, additionally, with text mining and database construction using fee based systems and open access databases and software.

Abstract

Information is highly regarded in the phamaceutical industry, and the provision of chemistry and patent databases to assess the novelty of inventions has been well funded. However, the position of fee based databases used to assess novelty is under threat from a large number of free to use patent collections. Integration of information from multiple incompatible collections has become a complex process. Obfuscation processes within chemical patents have risen to an art form with the number of "languages" used to describe chemical structures. Resolution of the issues associated with content and intent of pharmaceutical patents could be addressed by the authors, publishers and database producers, but it is unlikely that these, or intelligent search methodologies will resolve these issues in the near future. The Democratisation of invention by free patent databases mirrors the democratisation of search and knowledge, but whether this can be achieved with data that does not readily reveal its content will remain an issue for several years to come.