Ron Kamecki looks at the tools available for scientific searches of prior art, and the steps to take beyond checking readily available sources such as MEDLINE or Inspec.
Subject indexing has usually been added to these databases since such areas can be complex, and it is best to take advantage of this additional level of detail to find materials that cannot be found just by looking for words in a title or abstract.
Note that whenever someone is conducting leadingedge research and they develop a new concept or invention, they are free to name it whatever they wish, but consider what the indexing sources have to do whenever they are faced with identifying a new idea: they index it under their already established terminology.
Patent offices around the world are faced with indexing new inventions every day and they rely on different systems of classification codes. Therefore, a complete search will involve codes of some type as the very nature of research involves reporting on concepts that have not been identified up to the point of publication.
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Scientific searches, prior art, indexing, patents
