Utilizing Patent Information as a Data Mining Tool for Research in Agricultural Sector

Abstract

Agriculture is the means of livelihood of about two-thirds of the work force in the country. The Government has accorded the highest priority to Agricultural Research. Agricultural Research institutions and agricultural universities have came out with improved varieties/hybrids of crops, New vaccines for control of rinderpest, equine influenza, in animals, and improvement in vaccines. The agricultural research sector comprises all aspects of research including agro forestry, animal husbandry, dairying sector, fisheries horticulture, natural resources management, agriculture engineering, agricultural extension, water management, fertilizers, cropping practices, pesticides, animal science, fisheries, land and soil use, transgenic, high yielding varieties, oilseed production, plant breeding, allele mining for abiotic stress, production of resistant varieties, plant, animal and fish quarantine and diagnostics, with interface of statistics, economics and marketing policy issues. The area of agriculture is vast and the information contained in patent documents can be strategically utilized to fish out knowledge from information related to new designs, technology improvement, processing techniques. The information in the patent documents can be worked on as per freedom to operate rules. The information for wheat harvesting, improved varieties, new bioactive pesticide compounds, fertilizers will only add to knowledge that can be improved by researchers. In this context the International Patent Classification comes handy as all information is categorized in an hierarchical order that makes search refinement easy. The utility of using IPC is that it is jargon independent and bridges the understanding between a lawyer, who is an expert in legal field to and an inventor, who uses scientific key words. The IPC contains around 70000 symbols that is associated with a title that describes the subject matter The classification also defines the exact boundaries of subject matter without changing scope of the classification entries. The present paper deals with the information search related to patents by using patent scope in different fields of agriculture. The information shows the trend of technology that can be harnesses to increase production by licensing-in technologies created by innovators and also by licensing-out technologies that have been created by researchers in public and private funded institutes. The paper addresses the gaps and clusters in agricultural production for strategically developing R&D to address global food crisis. The study can be more tailored to address specific concerns, thereby leading to a more efficient way to achieve research goals for enhanced productivity in agricultural sector.