Japanese and Chinese Patent Office Database System Comparison

The purpose of this study is to compare the Japanese and Chinese patent databases by performing technology forecasting in the electric vehicle industry for Toyota, Nissan, and BYD manufacturers based on patent findings. Firstly, both patent databases will be searched for relevant patent information by using the Patentscope patent searching tool, which will be used as a baseline, and then the Japanese patent database will be searched by using the Jplatpat patent searching tool, which is the default tool for Japanese Patent Office, and the Chinese patent database will be searched using the China National Intellectual Patent Administration’s built-in patent searching tool. Then, the data acquired from those searches will be analyzed using Python, the programming language, and relevant data science and visualization libraries. These findings will be further cross-checked against the data analysis of the scientific papers found in the Scopus platform, where the search will be carried out for each country separately. Additionally, during the search, the second question that will be attempted to be answered will be whether searching in English is sufficient or if translation into the originating country’s language is necessary. In other words, would a person with no knowledge of Japanese or Chinese be able to search those countries’ patent databases comfortably, or would they need to use different types of translation methods to successfully carry out patent-related searching operations such as state-of-the-art, freedom to operate, novelty searches, etc.