The Impact of Database Querying Exactitude in Intellectual Property Law Practice in Brazil

Sammanfattning: In current business affairs, most executive professions require one or several kinds of data consultation in their practice. Nowadays, the majority of data either is or has been digitalized and digital data is defined as information represented in a discrete and discontinuous manner. For accessibility purposes, data are often stored in databases that organize information via design and modeling techniques to facilitate querying. Data retrieval is crucial and if this process lacks efficacy, users either are presented incomplete information or are forced to perform repetitive queries. Intellectual property (IP) lawyers in Brazil are among that group and must regularly access a private database for trademark information. While it contains all the data they require, the database’s querying mechanisms are not tailored for IP law practice. The existing filters and lack of replacement algorithms often yield incomplete results, increasing time and resources dispended. With millions of dollars in potential lawsuits and work-hours, the purpose of this study is to investigate whether an IP-focused querying system could help mitigate this resource waste, facilitating the trademark comparison work of IP lawyers. For this, a new orthographic and phonetically focused querying logic was implemented. ANOVA tests and a questionnaire were used to compare the existing querying mechanism with the new one in terms of time, work satisfaction and querying accuracy. Results indicate the new querying system significantly decreased the amount of searches needed to execute a complete trademark analysis, while lawyers averaged the same amount of time to complete their work. Lawyers also reported higher work satisfaction levels and perceived increase in work efficiency.