Measuring patent similarity by comparing inventions functional trees

The estimation of the conceptual distance between patents is a critical issue for Computer-Aided patent portfolio analysis systems, an emerging class of computer tools for supporting R&D analyses and decisions, patent infringement risk evaluation, technology forecasting. The aim of the present work is the introduction of an original algorithm for patent comparison: since typical text analyses are biased by the writer’s style, the inventions similarity is here estimated by comparing the components and their hierarchical and functional interactions automatically extracted by means of a custom software tool. The whole procedure is clarified with an exemplary application in the field of electric current circuit breakers.