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Chemical Explorer, developed by Minesoft to take advantage of Chemical NER technology to add chemical structure search capability throughout the entire text of millions of patent documents, can interrogate patent data in several ways. Similarity, substructure and exact structure searching are available, with structure input possible from chemical name, trade name, SMILES, Mol file or by drawing the structure.

Chemical Explorer enhancements

Chemical Explorer has recently been further developed, with the following enhancements:

  • Increased data coverage: Russian language patents now included, coverage now includes patents from Russia (RU), Soviet Union (SU) and East Germany (DD)
  • R-Group table searching has been added: accumulate more relevant hits whilst keeping ‘noise’ to a minimum
  • Excel export option added: share insights and information across the corporation
  • Local chemical search history added: avoid the time-consuming process of re-running or re-drawing previous searches

Indexing updates

A thorough re-index has been completed to further improve precision and search speeds.

Historically, one of the biggest issues in examining chemical information in patents involved searching chemical names from non-Latin documents, due to the differences in the way certain chemical terms are written and confusion around the way in which translation rules should be applied.

The Minesoft development team have worked to significantly enhance the non-Latin data included within Chemical Explorer with the addition of Russian patents. The index coverage has been expanded to include non-Latin PCT documents and systematic chemical names written in Russian, including patents from the following authorities: Russia (RU), Soviet Union (SU), East Germany (DD). The system is now more comprehensive than ever, covering patents written in English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, French, German and Russian. 

R-Group table searching now available

Chemical entities described within R-group tables can now be searched within Chemical Explorer for any documents published in the US. This is done by searching a specific molecule and, if a core structure in combination with corresponding R-Group definitions from the text matches the queried molecule, then the document will flag as a hit.

TextMine will highlight the generic core if such a hit is found and described compounds will be included in Excel exports. This advancement will allow users to accumulate more relevant hits with their searches without sacrificing the specificity of their queries, keeping ‘noise’ to a minimum.

Easy export of chemical data from Chemical Explorer to Excel

In knowledge-driven industries, intelligent information is key. Regularly searching and reviewing patent literature is crucial for survival in any company invested in creating the technologies of tomorrow. With new Excel export options, users can easily disseminate information & insights throughout a corporation; ensuring that patent literature is fully exploited to harness new technologies and boost innovation.

This option is available both via Chemical Explorer search results and when viewing chemical structures using TextMine.

Update to similarity searching

Chemical entities are often disclosed in scientific literature between one and three years after they appear in patent documentation. Hence, ignoring patents as a source of prior art can at best delay innovation and at worst result in lost R&D revenue wasted on projects that transpire to be unpatentable due to prior art.

Similarity searching in Chemical Explorer provides a fast and easy way to check the novelty of chemical compounds, or to search for similar molecules to the queried chemical with an easy-to-use similarity threshold that can expand or contract the number of results returned. Using an advanced algorithm, the similarity search functionality identifies similar chemical structures. This has now been enhanced with a ‘similarity score’, results are displayed in order of similarity and each compound will display the score, so users can quickly check how relevant the displayed compound is. All compounds in the database are considered when determining this order.

Chemical name preference updates

Auto-suggest terms and chemical names in search results in Chemical Explorer are now determined from the most common names found in patent documents; ensuring that the terms generated by auto-suggest are relevant.

Intelligent, appropriate terms are identified faster than ever. In addition, auto-suggest has been further enhanced to include the chemical structure for the terms listed to allow quick confirmation that the chemical entity chosen is the desired structure for searching.

New chemical search history

Chemical Explorer users have access to a local chemical search history, making it quicker and more convenient to re-run previous searches.

Avoid repetition in your daily tasks with the ability to flick easily between previously searched chemical compounds of interest whilst avoiding the time-consuming process of having to redraw the chemical structures or search again.

Chemical Explorer is an innovative new concept that is being used around the world today. To send us feedback or ask for a demo, email us at [email protected] today.