Issue 12 2020

Oct20164 “Finally, we will also develop the area of automated translations and landscaping analysis. Artificial Intelligence is a big buzzword in the Online Publishing Industry at present and we are designing new ideas in this area to further automate and streamline our products. We host about 160 million patent (sci-tech) documents right now and this is increasing every week. Such a large body of research material needs to be made accessible to companies who are working to pioneer new solutions.” Minesoft Ltd Contact: Caitlin Kavanagh, Marketing Manager Website: https://minesoft.com/ Address: Main Office (London), Shearwater House, The Green, Richmond-upon-Thames, TW9 1PX Tel: +44 (0)20 8404 0651 Fax: +44 (0)20 8404 0681 General email enquiries: [email protected] Support email: [email protected] Minesoft: Leaders in British Patent Technology Established in 1996, Minesoft quickly gained market traction due to its innovative patent information products. Alongside the announcement of the company’s success in the Corporate Excellence programme as the ‘Most Influential Leader in Patent Technology in the UK’ we spoke with Co-Founder and Managing Director Ann Chapman to find out more about Minesoft’s history and expertise. More than anything, Minesoft’s founding was a marriage between two areas of expertise. In this case, it was Ann Chapman’s and her husband Ophir Daniel’s skills in sci-tech publishing and computer programming. From its earliest years, it was clear that there was something unique about Minesoft’s offering, the sort of potent combination that happens so rarely on the greater business landscape. Seven years into its lifespan, Minesoft joined forces with RWS PLC – a publicly quoted UK specialist translation company which is one of the biggest corporate scientific translation companies in the world today. Since then, Minesoft’s growth has been exponential and now hosts offices across UK, Germany and the USA, with representatives further afield. In many ways, Minesoft’s story of success is staggering, and defined by smart, timely decision making and the simple power of “right place, right time.” Of course, it would be remiss to gloss over the expertise of Ann and Ophir in all of this, and fundamentally inaccurate to note it all down as fickle luck. No. The ingredients for Minesoft’s enduring success were evident in its founding and formed from a core ethos that still rings true to this day, as Ann explains. “Above all else, we believe that search platforms should be built for users, with input from users, irrespective of what background these user communities have. Minesoft strives to strike the balance between development cycles while listening to clients’ feedback. We have benefitted from great user feedback. If our clients have ideas about how we can further help them, we will do so. Even if the benefit is focused on a particular vertical market segment. “For instance, Minesoft has developed tools for users in the biotech, chemical, and life sciences area which range from the automation of text extraction and association to the ability to easily draw chemical structures for search input. And we are a company of linguists.” There can be no doubt that client-centricity is crucial to Minesoft’s success. By hinging its services around the clientele, the company has been reactive and adaptive to the ever-changing needs of those that use its solutions. Indeed, there are hundreds of examples of 90’s technology firms stumbling and failing on the back of an inability to change to the swiftly developing digital arena. Not here, not with Minesoft. The future of Minesoft is one best described as a “continuation”. A continuation towards growth and expansion into new markets, capitalising on an increased presence in Germany and the US, as Ann concludes here in her closing comments. “We expanded firmly into those markets with the formation of Minesoft GmbH and Minesoft LLC. We also recently launched a new patent Search Engine and will continue working on it in the following few years to develop some neat new functionality in areas like natural language searching, instant faceting of millions of documents and semantics. “Minesoft is an innovative online patent solutions provider offering its products and services to national patent offices, professional search firms, patent attorney firms, academic institutions and many Fortune 500/FTSE 100 companies around the world.” - Ann Chapman, Co-Founder “We started from scratch, around our kitchen table, with an overriding desire to remain profitable. Despite not taking on outside investment we have grown the company every single year for 24 years and now have clients all over the globe – in every corner, but especially in advanced manufacturing countries where patenting is an important activity to secure intellectual property and sell goods abroad.” - Ann Chapman Issue 12 2020 43