Title:

LexiChem and structure-based patent searching

Author:

Nicko Goncharoff
Reel Two, Inc.

Abstract:

Chemists involved in drug discovery efforts frequently search patent
databases for chemical compounds related to the target they're
researching. Finding which compounds are being patented by which
companies and how they're being used is an important part of drug
discovery due diligence and competitive intelligence.

Reel Two has integrated its Entity Extractor product with LexiChem
to create a product, SureChem, that enables users to search patent
data by structure as well as compound name. SureChem users can
find out which structures are contained in a patent or group of
patents, and see which structures are associated with inventors,
companies, key phrases and other compounds. Reel Two clients have
called SureChem's ability to extract structures from patent data
without relying on manually-curated databases the missing piece of
their patent search work.

LexiChem enables SureChem to offer search by structure and also
supports the conversion of chemical names found in patent text
into 2-D structure formats (e.g. SMILES). Integrating SureChem
with molecular editing software further enables users to submit
queries and view search results in the form of 2-D structure
representations. Our presentation will examine how LexiChem and
OpenEye have helped Reel Two tackle this challenging problem, and
look at further opportunities for applying other cheminformatics
technologies to this area.