Evaluation of the Derwent World Patents Index (DWPI) abstracts quality using Japanese patent documents

Derwent World Patents Index (DWPI), providing patent data from 48 worldwide patent authorities and 2 literature sources, marked its 50th anniversary in 2013. Seeing a dramatic change in the environment for the supply and use of patent information in the last half-century, DWPI is used today as indexed secondary database for patent research in businesses worldwide. It features both abstracting by subject experts-and that structured abstracting reflecting patent-specific information elements-and added index uniquely classified to suite to technology fields. This article reviews the DWPI abstracts quality evaluation using Japanese patent documents with focus on the structured abstract, and it shows findings from evaluation on three required fields, i.e. Novelty, Advantage, and Use.