Case Study - Derwent

The Product

Derwent are a large publisher of business and scientific information. They have a product called DWPI, the Derwent World Patent Index, containing millions of patents, patent images, and proprietary added value abstracts and indexing.

The Problem

Derwent wanted to sell the data to their large corporate customers, e.g. so engineers could check to see which new patents competing companies had been granted.

Derwent had a virtual monopoly with their data, with hundreds of scientists, indexing, abstracting and collating all European, Japanese and US patents. However, the only way to sift through the megabytes of data was via an outdated dialup VDU based system. In order to make sales, Derwent needed a PC based, easy to use system.

Derwent needed a solution, and they wanted it to add to the bottom line in the current financial year.

The Solution

An advanced free text search engine was used to hold and index the vast quantities of data.

This allowed google style searches on the data
It enabled power users to search on specific data fields (e.g. year > 1998 and year < 2000 )
It also allowed for different fields in different record types, e.g. engineering and chemical patents

To access the data, a web based solution was used.

It could be accessed from any PC with a web browser anywhere in the company, or by users with a laptop from anywhere in the world. By using HTML, the graphical user interface, the most complex part of any application, was provided, literally, for free.
Only 1 instance of the software exists, easy to maintain and upgrade, and reducing the need for exhaustive testing. If a bug was discovered, it could be fixed on the sever, automatically fixing it for all users simultaneously.
Apache, the world's most popular web server was used, give the client-server part of the application, literally, for free.
Perl, the world's most popular web application language was used, using the web standard CGI web server to application interface. Perl is a high level, but very powerful text manipulation language, perfect for prototyping and fast development. Perfect for querying a database, and formatting HTML output, or creating images, for web browsers.

Other advanced features included:

A user administration area of the website to create new users.
A database administration function to automatically download weekly patent updates from the Derwent FTP server, then update and re-index the database.
Ability for users to save and automatically run their favourite searches
Links to related Derwent and World Patent catalogues.
Software to manipulate the original patent images, to display either thumbnails or enlarged close ups.

The deliverable contains, several gigabytes of patent data, the Perl based application, and the Apache webserver.

The Result

Derwent had world class, web based method for accessing their data. Instead of being restricted to dedicated patent searchers, any lawyer or engineer could access the system with minimal training.

Derwent made many sales of its patent data, together with weekly patent updates, and software maintenance.

Timescale

The prototype of the web based system was demonstrated at an exhibition just 2 weeks after development began. Being a web based system, the head of marketing used his laptop, linked to an OHP, and via the internet, to the development web server Derwent's London office.

Maintenance

Customers world-wide can view the test web server, and comment on, or suggest, new features.