Investigation of Carbon Nanotubes Using the F-Term Code of Japanese Patent Information

Patents contain much novel technological information. In this paper, the searching methods of the file index (FI) and F-term classification system developed by the Japan Patent Office (JPO) were employed to find patents containing information on carbon nanotube technology. All related patent data were searched for in the Intellectual Property Digital Library (IPDL). Moreover, using theme codes and term codes in the two-dimensional structure of the F-term list, we investigated and analyzed the technical features expressed by carbon nanotubes in related documents in Boolean operations.