PATSY - Making patents easier to read

Craic has released PATSY, a novel web service that reformats US patents in a way that makes them easier to read.

The text of patents is extremely difficult to read. The language used is can be verbose and arcane. Patents typically contain long lists of terms that enumerate all possible variants of each component within an invention. Compounding this is the narrow two column format chosen by the USPTO with which to print these documents.

The end result is text that almost guarantees frustration, eyestrain and headaches. PATSY is a novel web application that aims to change this.

You enter a US patent number, or publication number, into PATSY. The software fetches the document from the USPTO web site and reformats in several ways, displaying the resulting page in your web browser. Paragraphs are split into separate sentences. Long sentences are split are punctuation into multiple lines. In addition, references to other patents are made into hyperlinks to their respective office web sites, or to PATSY directly in the case of US patents. Key phrases, such as 'SEQ ID NO' are highlighted and certain types of journal references are given links to the NIH PubMed site, allowing quick access to the underlying publications.

PATSY is an experiment and has a few limitations. It only works with US patents at the moment and some features are focused on biotechnology patents. The service is free to use so please try it out and see if it helps you with your work - PATSY.

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