JP2016224998A - Information processing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To achieve proper evaluation means of quality of a bulletin such as a statement.SOLUTION: A claim word frequency distribution generation part 41 separates a content of a range of a patent claim of a patent publication bulletin into respective words, and generates claim word frequency distribution indicating frequency distribution of each word, after the content is divided into words. A statement word frequency distribution generation part 42 separates a content of a statement of the patent publication bulletin into respective words, and generates statement word frequency distribution indicating frequency distribution of each word after the content is divided into words. A statement near-synonym frequency distribution generation part 43 classifies respective words extracted from the statement into plural groups corresponding to each of the plural words in the range of the patent claim, then, generates statement near-synonym frequency distribution indicating frequency distribution in which, each of the plural groups after classification is a unit. An evaluation information generation part 44 generates evaluation information based on the claim word similarity distribution and the statement near-synonym frequency distribution.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 2

Description

  The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus.

  Conventionally, patent rights have been acquired by many companies for the purpose of protecting implementation schedules and ongoing projects. A patent right is a property right and can be effectively used by transferring it to a third party, setting a dedicated license, or granting a normal license.

In order to obtain a patent right, it is necessary to submit a document attached to the application in addition to the application. The attached documents of the application include claims, specification, drawings, and abstract.
A lot of research and development has been conducted on the technology for supporting the preparation of the attached document of the application (for example, see Patent Document 1) and the technology for analyzing the sentence structure of the attached document to the application (for example, see Patent Document 2). ing.

JP2013-080278A JP, 2014-010728, A

  However, when it is required to implement an appropriate evaluation method for the quality of the gazette in the specification and the like, the conventional techniques including Patent Documents 1 and 2 cannot sufficiently meet the request.

  This invention is made | formed in view of such a condition, and it aims at implement | achieving the appropriate evaluation method of the quality of gazettes, such as a specification.

An information processing apparatus according to one aspect of the present invention includes:
The first document showing the frequency distribution of the unit information after separation, by separating the content of the first document that can be included in the gazette relating to the intellectual property right into predetermined unit information consisting of characters, figures, symbols, or combinations thereof First information generating means for generating one information;
Second information generating means for separating the content of the second document that can be included in the publication into the unit information, and generating second information indicating the frequency distribution of the unit information after separation;
A third distribution classifying each unit information in the second information into a plurality of groups corresponding to each of the plurality of unit information of the first information, and showing a frequency distribution with each of the plurality of groups after classification as a unit. Third information generating means for generating information;
For each unit information in the first information, the smaller the difference in rank between the frequency ranking of the unit information in the first information and the frequency ranking of the corresponding group in the third information, the higher the score. As the evaluation information that evaluates the content of the publication as the total value of the score is higher, the higher the total value of the score, the higher the score, , Evaluation information generating means for generating the evaluation information indicating the degree of fulfillment of support requirements;
An information processing apparatus comprising:

  According to the present invention, it is possible to realize an appropriate evaluation method for the quality of a publication such as a specification.

It is a block diagram which shows the hardware constitutions of the gazette evaluation apparatus as one Embodiment of the information processing apparatus with which this invention is applied. It is a functional block diagram which shows the functional structure of the gazette evaluation apparatus of FIG. It is a schematic diagram explaining the outline of the evaluation information generation process which the gazette evaluation apparatus which has the functional structure of FIG. 2 performs. It is a flowchart explaining the flow of the evaluation information generation process which the gazette evaluation apparatus which has a functional structure of FIG. 2 performs.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration of a publication evaluation apparatus 1 as an embodiment of an information processing apparatus of the present invention.

  The publication evaluation apparatus 1 includes a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 11, a ROM (Read Only Memory) 12, a RAM (Random Access Memory) 13, a bus 14, an input / output interface 15, an input unit 16, and an output unit. 17, a storage unit 18, a communication unit 19, and a drive 20.

The CPU 11 executes various processes according to a program recorded in the ROM 12 or a program loaded from the storage unit 18 to the RAM 13.
The RAM 13 appropriately stores data necessary for the CPU 11 to execute various processes.

  The CPU 11, ROM 12, and RAM 13 are connected to each other via a bus 14. An input / output interface 15 is also connected to the bus 14. An input unit 16, an output unit 17, a storage unit 18, a communication unit 19, and a drive 20 are connected to the input / output interface 15.

The input unit 16 includes a keyboard, a mouse, and the like, and inputs various information according to an instruction operation by the operator.
The output unit 17 includes a display, a speaker, and the like, and outputs images and sounds.
The storage unit 18 includes a hard disk, a DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory), and the like, and stores various data.
The communication unit 19 controls communication with other devices (not shown) via the network 4 including the Internet.

  A removable medium 31 made of a magnetic disk, an optical disk, a magneto-optical disk, a semiconductor memory, or the like is appropriately attached to the drive 20. The program read from the removable medium 31 by the drive 20 is installed in the storage unit 18 as necessary. The removable medium 31 can also store various data stored in the storage unit 18 in the same manner as the storage unit 18.

In this embodiment, the publication evaluation apparatus 1 having such a configuration is an apparatus that evaluates the quality of specifications that can be included in a patent publication, an application publication publication, or a utility model registration publication.
In the following description, for the sake of convenience, a patent right will be described, but the same applies to a utility model right.

  In order to obtain a patent right, in addition to the application, it is necessary to submit the claims, the description, the necessary drawings, and the abstract as an attached document of the application.

The claims should fulfill their mission as patent rights. That is, the technical scope of the patented invention is determined based on the description of the scope of claims.
The specification should fulfill its mission as a technical document for disclosing the contents of the invention to a third party.
Here, with regard to the description of the scope of claims, a requirement (hereinafter referred to as “support requirement”) that “the invention to be patented is described in the detailed description of the invention” is required. Yes. Specifically, in Japan, the support requirement is stipulated in Article 36, Paragraph 6, Item 1 of the Patent Act.
This support requirement is the reason for refusal in Japan (Patent Law Article 49.4). In other words, a patent right cannot be obtained in Japan unless it is a specification that satisfies the support requirements.
Therefore, whether or not the support requirement is satisfied is one of the important factors for the quality of the specification.
Therefore, the publication evaluation apparatus 1 of the present embodiment, as evaluation information for evaluating the contents of the specification based on the frequency distribution of the words included in the claims and the frequency distribution of the words included in the specification, An evaluation value indicating the degree of fulfillment of the support requirement (hereinafter referred to as “support information fulfillment index”) is generated.
Hereinafter, a series of processes until the evaluation information (support information quality index) for the patent gazette or the application publication gazette to be evaluated is generated is referred to as “evaluation information generation process”.

FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram showing a functional configuration for executing the evaluation information generation process among the functional configurations of the publication evaluation apparatus 1.
In the CPU 11 of the publication evaluation apparatus 1, when the evaluation information generation process is executed, the complaint word frequency distribution generation unit 41, the specification word frequency distribution generation unit 42, the detailed document synonym frequency distribution generation unit 43, and the evaluation information The generation unit 44 functions. The evaluation information generation unit 44 includes a weighting unit 51.
In one area of the storage unit 18 of the publication evaluation apparatus 1, a publication information DB 61 is provided.

  The claim word frequency distribution generation unit 41 separates the contents of claims (contents of claims) contained in the patent gazette or application publication to be evaluated into each word, and indicates the frequency distribution of the words after separation (Hereinafter referred to as “claim word frequency distribution”).

  The specification word frequency distribution generation unit 42 separates the contents of the specification contained in the patent gazette or the application publication gazette to be evaluated into each word, and indicates the frequency distribution of the words after the separation (hereinafter referred to as “specification” Called word frequency distribution).

  Here, in generating the support information enrichment index, the claim word frequency distribution and the specification word frequency distribution may be compared, but the comparison may not be an effective comparison. The reason for this will be described below.

However, in the description, in addition to the above-mentioned support requirements, the detailed description of the invention is “clear and sufficient so that a person having ordinary knowledge in the technical field to which the invention belongs can carry out its implementation. The requirement “to be described in the above” (hereinafter referred to as “practicable requirement”) is also required. Specifically, in Japan, the enablement requirement is defined in Article 36, Paragraph 4, Item 1 of the Patent Act.
This feasible requirement is the reason for refusal in Japan (Patent Act Article 49.4). In other words, a patent right cannot be obtained in Japan unless it is a specification that satisfies the enablement requirement.
Here, since the claims have the character as a right document as described above, the claims are often described in a superordinate concept as much as possible so as to generally have a broad right range. That is, each word appearing in the complaint word frequency distribution is often a vague word of a superordinate concept.
On the other hand, in the specification, in order to satisfy the feasibility requirement, a word indicating specific technical contents, that is, a subordinate concept exemplifying the superordinate concept (word described in claims) There are many. That is, in the specification, a word indicating specific technical contents often appears as a word explaining the superordinate concept.
In other words, the words of the higher concept described in the claims are used as they are, and the embodiments in the specification are rarely described, and the words of the plurality of lower concepts (examples) are described. Many.
For this reason, even if the claim word frequency distribution and the specification word frequency distribution are compared as they are, it may not be an effective comparison.

Therefore, in the present embodiment, the detailed document synonym frequency distribution generation unit 43 classifies each word extracted from the specification into a plurality of groups corresponding to a plurality of words (superordinate concepts) in the scope of claims. .
Here, the classification method into a plurality of groups is not particularly limited, but in the present embodiment, the synonyms are classified into the same group on the assumption that the superordinate concept of the plurality of synonyms corresponds to one predetermined word in the claims. A classification method is used.
The detailed document synonym frequency distribution generation unit 43 generates information indicating a frequency distribution in units of a plurality of classified groups (groups corresponding to a plurality of words in the claims). Such information is hereinafter referred to as “detailed document synonym frequency distribution”.

The evaluation information generation unit 44 generates a support information fulfillment index (evaluation information) based on the claim word similarity distribution and the detailed document synonym frequency distribution.
For example, in the present embodiment, the evaluation information generating unit 44 uses the frequency ranking of words included in the claim word frequency distribution and the frequency of groups included in the detailed document synonym frequency distribution (groups corresponding to predetermined words in the claim word frequency distribution). The degree of similarity is calculated by comparing the ranking. The evaluation information generation unit 44 generates the similarity or the processed value as a support information fulfillment index (evaluation information).
Specifically, for example, the evaluation information generation unit 44 calculates, for each word in the claim word frequency distribution, a score based on a rank difference from the corresponding group in the detailed document synonym frequency distribution, A support information fulfillment index (evaluation information) is generated based on the total value of the word scores.

  FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram for explaining an outline of the evaluation information generation process executed by the publication evaluation apparatus 1 having the functional configuration shown in FIG.

In the example of FIG. 3, regarding the frequency ranking of the complaint word frequency 71, the first place is “elastic body” and the second place is “stress”.
Here, regarding the frequency ranking of the specification word frequency 72, the first place is “stress”, the second place is “spring”, and the third place is “rubber”. Therefore, when the claim word frequency 71 and the specification word frequency 72 are compared in terms of frequency ranking, the first place of the claims is different from the first place of the description. Is not ranked in the description. As a result, when the support information fulfillment index (evaluation information) is simply generated based on this ranking, the similarity may be low (the degree of coincidence is low) and may be a low value.
Specifically, for example, a score “1” is given when the ranks match, a score “0.9” is given when the rank difference is 1, and a score “0” when the rank difference is 2. .8 ”is given, and thereafter the score decreases by 0.1 each time the rank difference increases. After the score becomes“ 0 ”, the score becomes“ 0 ”. In this case, for the claim word frequency 71, the score of the first “elastic body” is “0.9” and the score of the second “stress” is “0”. If the total value of these scores is the support information fulfillment index (evaluation information), the value is “0.9”.
The reason why the support information fulfillment index (evaluation information) that should be high in this way is low is that the superordinate concept “elastic body” and the subordinate concepts “spring” and “rubber” are associated with each other. Because it is not.

Therefore, in the present embodiment, the specification document synonym frequency distribution generation unit 43 classifies the “spring” and “rubber” extracted from the specification so as to belong to the group corresponding to the “elastic body” in the claims. To do.
As a result of such classification, a detailed document synonym frequency 73 is generated. Regarding the frequency ranking of the statement document synonym frequency 73, the first rank is the group to which the “spring, group” belongs, that is, the group corresponding to the “elastic body” in the claims. The second place is a group to which “stress” belongs, that is, a group corresponding to “stress” in claims.
In this case, since the ranks of the complaint word frequency 71 and the statement document synonym frequency 73 coincide with each other, if a support information fulfillment index (evaluation information) is generated based on this rank, the similarity is high (coincidence) Is high).
Specifically, for example, if a higher score is used, for the complaint word frequency 71, the score of the first “elastic body” is “1” and the score of the second “stress” is also “1”. . Therefore, the high value of the total value “2” of these scores is the support information fulfillment index (evaluation information).

Here, both the claim word frequency 71 and the detailed document synonym frequency 54 are distributions based on the appearance frequency of simple words. There are cases where the reliability of the support information quality index (evaluation information) compared with such simple appearance frequencies is not high.
Therefore, the evaluation information generation unit 44 of the present embodiment is provided with a weighting unit 51.

For example, when a score based on the above-described frequency ranking is adopted, the evaluation information generation unit 44 can weight the score based on the rank of each word in the complaint word frequency 71.
For example, even if the rankings match, if the case of matching the first place is compared with the case of matching the tenth place, the ratio of the former case contributes to the overall similarity. It can be said that it is expensive.
Therefore, the weighting unit 51 performs weighting so that the score when matching as the first place is high, and weighting so that the score when matching as the 10th place is low. For example, weighting is performed so that the score when matching as the first place is “2” while the score when matching as the tenth place is “0.2”.

Further, for example, the evaluation information generation unit 44 can weight the score for each word in the complaint word frequency 71 based on the degree of association with each word belonging to the corresponding group in the detailed document synonym frequency 73.
For example, for a group corresponding to “elastic body” in the scope of claims, “spring, rubber” is included in the corresponding group in the definition document synonym frequency 73. These are subordinate concepts of “elastic body”, but the word “elastic body” itself does not belong to the group.
On the other hand, for the group corresponding to “stress” in the claims, the word “stress” is included in the corresponding group in the detailed document synonym frequency 73.
Therefore, the weighting unit 51 increases the weight on the assumption that the “stress” in the claim belongs to the group to which the word having a higher degree of association belongs than the “elastic body” in the claim. Weighting

  Thus, it is assumed that the support information fulfillment index (evaluation information) generated after performing various weightings is closer to the actual value. That is, weighting makes it possible to generate a support information fulfillment index (evaluation information) with higher accuracy.

Here, in the complaint word frequency 71, a word different from the word that is a feature of the patented invention, for example, a general word such as “above” shown in FIG. 3, may be ranked higher in the frequency ranking. Therefore, it is preferable to remove such words as noise information.
That is, the evaluation information generation unit 44 removes noise information (for example, the word “said”) from each word in the complaint word frequency 71, and the total score value for each word after the noise information is removed. Based on the above, a support information fulfillment index (evaluation information) is generated.

  Thus, it is assumed that the support information fulfillment index (evaluation information) generated after noise removal is closer to the actual value. That is, by removing the noise information, it is possible to generate a support information fulfillment index (evaluation information) with higher accuracy.

  FIG. 4 is a flowchart for explaining the flow of evaluation information generation processing executed by the publication evaluation apparatus 1 having the functional configuration of FIG.

In step S1, the claim word frequency distribution generation unit 41 generates a claim word frequency distribution.
In step S2, the specification word frequency distribution generation unit 42 generates a specification word frequency distribution.
In step S3, the detailed document synonym frequency distribution generation unit 43 generates a detailed document synonym frequency distribution.
In step S4, the evaluation information generation unit 44 generates a support information fulfillment index (evaluation information) based on the claim word similarity distribution and the detailed document synonym frequency distribution.
Thereby, the evaluation information generation process ends.

  As mentioned above, although embodiment of this invention was described, this invention is not restricted to embodiment mentioned above. Further, the effects described in the present embodiment are merely a list of the most preferable effects resulting from the present invention, and the effects of the present invention are not limited to those described in the present embodiment.

For example, in the above-described embodiment, each word is extracted from the claims of the patent publication publication or the application publication gazette to generate a frequency distribution, and each word is extracted from the specification to generate the frequency distribution.
However, the present invention is not particularly limited to the above-described embodiment. For example, characters, figures, symbols, or a combination thereof (hereinafter referred to as “characters”) may be extracted from the specification, drawings, or abstract.
Furthermore, in the above-described embodiment, the patent publication is adopted, but it is not particularly limited to the patent, and the intellectual property right granted on the assumption that two or more types of documents including characters are submitted. The present invention can be employed for general evaluation of publications related to the above.

  Further, for example, in the above-described embodiment, the unit information of the frequency distribution is a word. However, the unit information is not particularly limited to this, and any unit information composed of characters, figures, symbols, or a combination thereof may be adopted. it can.

  In other words, the information processing apparatus to which the present embodiment is applied only needs to have the following configuration, and can take various embodiments.

That is, the information processing apparatus of the present invention
The contents of the first document (for example, claims) that can be included in the gazette relating to intellectual property rights are separated into predetermined unit information (for example, words) consisting of characters, figures, symbols, or combinations thereof, and separated. A first information generating unit (for example, the claim word frequency distribution generating unit 41 in FIG. 2) for generating first information (for example, a claim word frequency distribution) indicating the frequency distribution of the unit information after;
Second information (for example, specification word frequency distribution) indicating the frequency distribution of the unit information after separation of the content of the second document (for example, description) that can be included in the gazette into the unit information (for example, word) ) Generating second information (for example, the specification word frequency distribution generation unit 42 in FIG. 2),
Evaluation information generating means for generating evaluation information for evaluating the contents of the publication based on the first information and the second information;
Is provided.

  By adopting such an information processing apparatus, it becomes possible to more appropriately evaluate a gazette related to intellectual property rights.

The contents of the first document and the contents of the second document that can be included in the gazette do not necessarily need to be a copy of the gazette, and if the gazette is issued, the first document that will be included in the gazette. And the contents of the second document.
In other words, publication of a gazette is not particularly essential, and there is a possibility that information indicating the contents of the first document or the second document may exist even in an unfiled stage or an unpublished stage after filing. , “Can be included in the publication”.
Therefore, the contents of the first document and the second document that can be included in the official gazette include, for example, copy data held by the applicant regarding unpublished “claims” and “specifications”, etc. And the contents of documents (for example, an invention report created by the applicant) describing the contents of “claims” and “specifications” before the application.
Further, the second user is not particularly required to be an implementation candidate business operator, and may be an intellectual property person in charge of the applicant.
From the above, for example, the intellectual property person in charge of the patent applicant (company) can evaluate the draft specification at the stage before the application, so that the low-valuation draft will be highly evaluated. You can also apply after rewriting it.

Further, such evaluation information can be applied to other fields such as patent analysis. For example, it can be used for correcting (weighting) a patent evaluation index based on the number of citations.
Also, for example, when searching for license candidates based on patent analysis, a patent consisting of a specification with a high evaluation information (support information quality index) is preferentially designated as a “highly matching” patent. It can also be presented to a person or the like.

The series of processes described above can be executed by hardware or can be executed by software.
In other words, the functional configuration of FIG. 3 is merely an example, and is not particularly limited. That is, it is sufficient that the publication evaluation apparatus 1 has a function capable of executing the above-described series of processing as a whole, and what functional block is used to realize this function is not particularly limited to the example of FIG. .
In addition, one functional block may be constituted by hardware alone, software alone, or a combination thereof.

When a series of processing is executed by software, a program constituting the software is installed on a computer or the like from a network or a recording medium.
The computer may be a computer incorporated in dedicated hardware. The computer may be a computer capable of executing various functions by installing various programs, for example, a general-purpose personal computer.

  The recording medium including such a program is not only constituted by the removable medium 31 of FIG. 1 distributed separately from the apparatus main body in order to provide the program to the user, but also in a state of being incorporated in the apparatus main body in advance. It is comprised with the recording medium etc. which are provided in this. The removable medium 31 is composed of, for example, a magnetic disk (including a floppy disk), an optical disk, a magneto-optical disk, or the like. The optical disk is composed of, for example, a CD-ROM (Compact Disk-Read Only Memory), a DVD (Digital Versatile Disk), or the like. The magneto-optical disk is configured by an MD (Mini-Disk) or the like. In addition, the recording medium provided to the user in a state of being preliminarily incorporated in the apparatus main body is configured by, for example, the ROM 12 in FIG.

  In the present specification, the step of describing the program recorded on the recording medium is not limited to the processing performed in time series along the order, but is not necessarily performed in time series, either in parallel or individually. The process to be executed is also included.

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Gazette evaluation apparatus, 11 ... CPU, 12 ... ROM, 13 ... RAM, 14 ... Bus, 15 ... Input / output interface, 16 ... Input part, 17 ... -Output unit, 18 ... Storage unit, 19 ... Communication unit, 20 ... Drive, 31 ... Removable media, 41 ... Claim word frequency distribution generation unit, 42 ... Description word frequency Distribution generation unit, 43 ... Detailed document synonym frequency distribution generation unit, 44 ... Evaluation information generation unit, 51 ... Weighting unit, 61 ... Gazette information DB

Claims (1)

The first document showing the frequency distribution of the unit information after separation, by separating the content of the first document that can be included in the gazette relating to the intellectual property right into predetermined unit information consisting of characters, figures, symbols, or combinations thereof First information generating means for generating one information;
Second information generating means for separating the content of the second document that can be included in the publication into the unit information, and generating second information indicating the frequency distribution of the unit information after separation;
A third distribution classifying each unit information in the second information into a plurality of groups corresponding to each of the plurality of unit information of the first information, and showing a frequency distribution with each of the plurality of groups after classification as a unit. Third information generating means for generating information;
For each unit information in the first information, the smaller the difference in rank between the frequency ranking of the unit information in the first information and the frequency ranking of the corresponding group in the third information, the higher the score. As the evaluation information that evaluates the content of the publication as the total value of the score is higher, the higher the total value of the score, the higher the score, , Evaluation information generating means for generating the evaluation information indicating the degree of fulfillment of support requirements;
An information processing apparatus comprising:

Images