Flowchart Recognition in Patent Information Retrieval

Abstract

A patent can be defined as a legal title protecting a technical invention for a limited period. Patent documents consist of three parts mainly [10]. First, a front page presenting general information about the patent, such as the title, the summary of the invention, the name of the inventors, etc. Second, the technical description, which details the technical problem the invention solves as well as the state of the art and the novelty of the invention. Finally, a claims section that defines the intellectual property (IP) protection rights, i.e. a clear description of what is legally protected. In each of these parts, drawings can be (and are often) used to provide an accurate detailed description of intermediate parts of the invention. Since patent documents include both technical and legal information, conducting a patent search is of extreme importance for several purposes [11]. The technical part of patents, as in the case of scientific publications, defines the state of the art for a given problem and can be used to find out what already exists and to check the novelty of a given invention. Concerning the legal aspects, they can also be used in order to assess the freedom to operate, i.e. make sure we are not infringing someone else’s IP rights, or to check whether someone might be infringing our own IP rights.