Interview with an Article One Patent Researcher
Posted on Thu, Aug 12, 2010
AOP Featured Researcher: Minerva Rivero (engr009)
Minerva Rivero joins Article One from Puerto Rico, where she currently resides. Minerva is one of the Winning Researchers for the DSI 279 Study regarding speech recognition patents and the EMER 911 Study regarding location detection for mobile phones. Minerva’s brother was kind enough to tell her about Article One after learning about us online.
Minerva graciously granted Article One the following interview:
Q. What is your profession?
Minerva: I’ve been an independent contractor since 2007 and do international patent application consulting as well as search engine evaluation. I’m also trying to get started as a Patent Agent.
Q. What is your education background?
Minerva: I have a BS with High Honors in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico. Currently, I’m pursuing a Graduate Certificate in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Maryland.
Q. Please explain your expertise which you find most relevant to your work with Article One?
Minerva: Patent disclosures are characterized by inflated, abstract language and as a Patent Examiner I acquired agility in sifting through such language to get to the essence of the invention. However, you don’t need an intellectual property background to develop this skill, anyone can go to Google Patents and study the format and read a few patents and quickly become dexterous in patent analysis. The engineering background has been useful in some studies, but I’ve also participated in studies not within my technical realm.
Q. What do you like best about being an Article One Advisor?
Minerva: I like that it is a high-return investment of my time, a few hours of research can potentially turn into thousands of dollars. I like that there is always a variety of active studies to participate in, so if I have some free time I can always count on there being something interesting at AOP. I like the flexibility of being able to conduct research at my pace, when I have time, from my home or anywhere. It’s also very satisfying because what AOP is doing is transcendental, particularly in this patent reform climate. AOP is a growing and productive community where interesting ideas are constantly flourishing and Advisors are an integral part of this dynamic; Advisors expose their ideas and AOP asks for our input in many initiatives.
Q. Which study so far have you most enjoyed researching?
Minerva: Studies where older patents are involved, for example, the EMER 911 and LUK 557 studies, are fascinating to research because you are looking at the state of technology of the time with the benefit of hindsight.
Q. How do you choose which studies you participate in?
Minerva: Mostly I participate in those studies where the subject matter is familiar to me. If I have time I’ll venture into unfamiliar topics. I also like the simpler studies such as the business cards study (DEV 126) and the paper towel dispenser study (AMC 898).
Q. Which research tools do you frequently use?
Minerva: Google Patents, online thesaurus, Wikipedia. I also use the Wayback machine (www.archive.org) and USPTO PAIR in some cases.
Q. What is your primary language?
Minerva: English and Spanish.
Q. Are you fluent in any other languages?
Minerva: Basic level of French and Italian.
Q. In which language(s) do you conduct your research?
Minerva: English
Q. Do you have special access to any particular databases which you leverage for your research?
Minerva: IEEE Xplore.
Q. Do you conduct research in any non-English databases?
Minerva: I sometimes search in the Japanese Abstracts Database.
Q. You won one of the AOP studies right? Which study?
Minerva: I was one of the winners in the EMER 911 and DSI 279 studies.
Q. What was the process that led you to the winning prior art?
Minerva: I came in late to the EMER 911 study so I focused on specific limitations as disclosed in dependent claims of the invention, as opposed to searching for the broader invention or independent claims. For the DSI 279 study, which was a guaranteed study, I focused on the inventions as a whole. I once read that a good prior art search strategy should look like a DNA double helix, with iterative broadening and narrowing of the scope and that’s usually my approach: I first start with the broadest search syntax, using as many equivalents for each term as I can find. That first search will almost certainly yield new equivalent terms that I use to expand my search query accordingly. I continue broadening and narrowing the search queries as required.
Q. What did you do with the reward money?
Minerva: The reward money is one of the main sources of funding for a Master’s degree I will start this fall in the UK at the University of Nottingham: MSc in Electrical Technology for Sustainable and Renewable Energy Systems. The rewards had perfect timing!
Q. Which Article One Studies are you currently researching?
Minerva: I’m researching the DEV 126 (two-sided printable media) and the semiconductor manufacturing study (MOF 112).
Q. What advice would you give to a new Advisor researching his/her first Article One Study?
Minerva: Patience and a positive attitude, it might be difficult to dedicate time to research at first and really delve into a study before you have seen a monetary award, but in my opinion the chances of winning are high. The first studies will be more difficult but the strategy is learnable so subsequent studies get easier.
Q. What would you say to somebody who was considering becoming an Article One Advisor?
Minerva: There is nothing to lose; a little time investment will likely go very far, it is a win-win proposition. There are also other ways that an Advisor can benefit from joining AOP, such as networking opportunities via the forum.
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