New Features and Improvements

Explore Patent Citations!

In a first for global patent databases, we are pleased to introduce functionality for navigating patent citations by viewing the citing and cited patents for a given search or collection of patents. This functionality allows for exploration of the linkages between documents and entities by viewing and analysing the forward and backward citations to sets of other patents, as well as the cited scholarly works.

The ability to create sets of patent documents, then explore the citations (forward and backward) is a valuable tool for innovation intelligence in the business sector and for technology transfer professionals and innovation policy professionals.

The citation functionality also allows for the exploration of influence and identification of partnership opportunities from sets of patents from a particular university, department, funding recipients or inventor, enabling analysis of the trends in citing patents and identifying which companies have cited them.

The new functionality can be accessed from the Explore Citations tab on patent search results or collections (formerly called "Cited Works"), and provides access to the following sets of citing/cited patents and works:

• Citing Patents (forward citations): These are the patent documents that cite (i.e. references cited) the patent documents in the original result set.
• Cited Patents (backward citations): These are the patent documents that are cited by the patent documents in the original result set.
• Cited Scholarly Works (backward NPL citations): These are the scholarly works (i.e. the non-patent literature (NPL) in the references cited that have been resolved to a scholarly work in The Lens) that are cited by the patents in the original result set.

Please note: Citing/Cited Patent counts can not be calculated for searches with more than 1 million results. Only citation results for the first 100,000 cited/citing patents in your initial search are supported at this time. We recommend refining your initial search to less than 100,000 cited/citing patents in order to view all citing/cited scholarly works for your initial search.

You can read more about exploring citations on the support post here: Explore Citations

Funder Logos Grids and Filters

With this release, functionality for creating funder logo grids and funder filter banners has been added, allowing you to create and add funder logo grids to analysis dashboards.

The funder logo grid chart can be accessed from the Funder group in the Analysis wizard, and the funder filter banner is automatically applied when a single funder is selected from the filters.

Please note, logos have been added for over 400 funders, however not all funders have a logo. If we are missing a logo or have an incorrect logo for a particular funder, please suggest an alternative by clicking on the logo in the filter banner.

New Language Options - Japanese

Continuing with the updates to our localisation, with this release we are pleased to announce the addition of translated message properties in Japanese (日本語). Much of this localisation has been done using machine translation with a check from a native Japanese speaker. We would like to acknowledge the help and support of Takao Shionoya - General Manager, Pasona Knowledge Partners Inc.

Please note, not all elements of the UI have been checked for each language. If you see a term that is not translated correctly or should be improved, please let us know by contacting Support. The updated localisation does not include PatSeq, PatCite, In4M or individual reports.

API Improvements

The API now supports min_score in the request body, and includes max_score in the response when size is greater than 0. The score represents the relevance score which is based on the query matching score used in Elasticsearch. This can be used to limit the response to the most relevant results and can be used in 2-steps:

1. Perform an initial API request to get the max_score. N.B. the size of the request needs to be greater than 0 to return the max_score.
2. You can then filter by the min_score in subsequent requests.

For example, if the max_score is 14 and there are 108K results in total from the initial request, you can pass the min_score as 13 (i.e. less than max_score) in the subsequent request to limit the response to the most relevant results only.

Please note:

• The max_score will be returned as 0 if size is 0 or if a sort is applied.
• Passing the min_score as x% of max_score may not result in top x% results.
• The score is calculated for each query by Elasticsearch, and so the max_score value will be different for each query.

Other Improvements and Changes

The Lens is a work in progress and with each release The Lens team improves on certain features or perfects the quality of the data and the service to provide you with the most comprehensive data we can source. While often these changes stem from users' feedback, they also originate from improved data processing and improvements in the source data. In this release, here is the list of other improvements and changes that were implemented:

• Linked the Scholarly Citations metric to the citing works tab, and linked the Patent Citations metric to the Citing Patents tab
• ORCID sync is now asynchronous
• Added sort by record Created Date for both scholarly works and patent results
• Added sort by Granted Date for patent results
• Updated the subscribing and supporting Institutions, added Center for Security and Emerging Technology and Institut "Jožef Stefan"
• Added JSONL export format to the Download Citation options on individual scholarly works and patents
• Style and UX improvements to report builder

Fixes

• Patent exports now work with pagination, exporting from the results page the user is on
• Removed stale document counts in the filter sidebar
• Search term highlighting in Scholarly Works search now applies to titles and abstract snippets
• Scholarly works regex queries are now converted to lowercase for improved results

API & Data Improvements

• Renamed all scholarly works fields ending in .keyword to .exact. The .keyword fields will be deprecated in a future release, so please replace any .keyword fields with .exact in your scholarly works API queries. These include author.affiliation.name.keyword and funding.organisation.keyword.
• Updated the Classification Explorer to use the latest CPC schema (version 2023.05).
• The API also now supports min_score in the request body, and includes max_score in the response when size is greater than 0.
• Added a JSONL Flattener python script to the API code samples, which converts JSONL export files into flat CSV files for both patent and scholarly works exports.

For guidance navigating the API, please check the API Documentation, and to report bugs/issues, usability related questions, or to request features, please use our GitHub issue tracker.

Interested in supporting the sustainability of The Lens?

• Contact your library, research office or technology transfer and commercialization teams, and let them know about Lens for Institutions and the Institutional Toolkits.
• If you need to use Lens.org for commercial uses, please comply with Lens Terms of Use by either subscribing to an Enterprise Toolkit, or if you are a sole practitioner or SME, an individual commercial use license. See account and pricing options. If you need more than 4 seats or have other special circumstances, please contact us at support@lens.org.
• Do you know someone who would be interested in The Lens? Share a search or collection with them, or suggest that they register for our newsletter here.

Interested in helping us improve?

• Collective Action needs connected actors. The Collective Action Project provides a number of different activities for all stakeholders to participate in collective problem solving. See how you can participate.
• Are you supportive of The Lens mission and interested in volunteering your expertise and time to support The Lens? We welcome expressions of interest. Please contact us at support@lens.org. We are happy to learn more about your skill sets and see if there is a good fit of skills and timing to contribute to The Lens.
• If you have published using Lens tools or data, or created an application using the API or data from the Lens, please share your work with us so we can share it with others on Lens Labs to help improve The Lens as a public resource.
• Share your use case with us and explore how The Lens can help you and keep sending us your feedback on The Lens features and functionality.

The Lens is a public good project run by Cambia, a global social enterprise that is committed to making the innovation process more transparent, inclusive and effective for those seeking to solve problems and make a social impact and thus, we welcome your active engagement, participation, and support.

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