Patent data mining method and apparatus

This invention relates to the field of data mining, specifically the exposition of the relationships between patents. A method of data mining represents related patents in a multidimensional space. Distance between patents in the multidimensional space corresponds to the extent of relationship between the patents. The relationship between pairings of patents can be expressed based on weighted combinations of several predicates. The user can select portions of the space to perceive. The user also can interact with and control the communication of the space, focusing attention on aspects of the space of most interest. The multidimensional spatial representation allows more ready comprehension of the structure of the relationships among the patents.