A thesaurus to supplement the international patent classification in the field of biomedical engineering

Abstract

The International Patent Classification, in spite of its clear advantages, does not meet the requirements of research and development in biomedical engineering. This article presents a descriptor thesaurus system providing finer classification of patent information for research and development needs, developed at the Chirana Research Institute of Medical Engineering. The article describes in detail the arrangement of the thesaurus, the data storage and retrieval using the computer facility of the Institute, and various outputs available from the storage and retrieval system for various purposes.