Limitations of Automatic Patent IR

Abstract

In the last years, the interest of the IR-community in patent retrieval has risen. Various experiments have been undertaken and the problems of the field experienced in-depth. Results show that the paramount steps in the patent retrieval process are difficult to automate. This paper gives an overview over the methods that have been tested in the domain including their results and promotes a complementary, more interactive approach to patent retrieval. At last, promising areas for future research are described.