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BLOG@IP::JURPatent Attorney Axel H Horns' Blog on Intellectual Property Law.
Saturday, May 13, 2006Google Trends on Intellectual Propery. Google Labs recently have launched a new tool in Beta status called Google Trends. This is how it works:"[...] Google Trends analyzes a portion of Google web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you enter relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. We then show you a graph with the results - our search-volume graph.I have played around for a little while with this tool. First, I have entered the terms "patents" and "trademarks". It does not really come as a surprise that apparently patent-related searches are much more common than trade mark related ones.  However, on the average Google News seems to report as often on patent matters as on trade mark matters. I am a bit surprised that not the U.S. but India appears to be the top country searching for patent related matters. Also there is a slight but clear decline in search volume for patents over the years. Below is the graph for the keyword "software patents" alone. You can see some spikes which can easily be understood in view of the dates of the political turning points of that matter. Interestingly, the graph fades out shortly after the  final decision of the EU parliament to abandon that project altogether. In view of this chart, I would dare to argue that the campaign against so-called "software patents" is virtually dead even on the Internet. Technorati Tags: Intellectual Property
I'm not so sure that you can draw this conclusion: note tha the graph is cut off, not dropping to near-zero. Try comparing 'software patents' with and without quotes: they correlate closely (unsurprisingly), but the graph without quotes continues when the one with quotes is cut off. Look like a bug/missing data to me. Obviously interest in software patents dropped when the issue became less pressing after the EU decision, but when you compare the searches for software patents to for example searches for the EU constitution, I'd say "virtually dead" are too harsh words.
@raboof: In my view the graph is cut off because of the search rates have dropped below the threshold level set by Google. This hypothesis would not conflict with heavy traffic on anti-patent campaigners' websites even after June 2005. There are a lot of people out there who know where to surf in order to obtain the latest news. Some of them might even use RSS feeds and the like. Such guys won't show up in any Google Trend on "software patents". The Google Trand graph merely reflects the search activities of such people who are not involved in anti-patent activism on a regular basis, and the number of such Google users has plummeted in mid-2005. The political essence is that this wider audience of the 2005 campaign has virtually vanished compared to the peak values. I think that discussion has now moved away from sector-specific issues like CII or biotechnology to broder fields like patent quality and enforcement or even to propagating to abolish the patent system altogther. Unter this new environmental circumstances, some of the FFII activists might fear to be dragged into any specific debate on practical improvments of the patent system. Or can this be interpreted differently? One of the more urgent constructive issues in order to improve the patent system might well be the issue of patent examination quality. But if you tell the people that enforcing the inventive step is not a matter of urgency then you are in a far better position to promote more funamentalistic anti-IP positions. Or, should I be seriously in error??
I just have seen that Google Trend has changed the algorithm and/or the database: Now the graph for "software patents" doesn't end somewhat erratically within the peak but has a steep trailing shoulder pointing downwards for a few additional weeks after the peak in mid-2005. Post a Comment
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