Dr. Ursula Schoch-Gruebler
Named IPI Award Recipient 2003
(Venue: Patent Information Users Group Annual Conference 2003, Chicago,
IL)
Following Luncheon, Monday 5th May, 2003:
Ford Khorsandian (IPI Award Sponsor, TPR):
Ladies and Gentlemen, we would now like to proceed with the
announcement for the IPI Award 2003.
Lets first hear from Trudi Jones of Technology & Patent Research
(TPR) International, sponsors of the IPI Award. She is going to say a few words of introduction.
Trudi
Jones (TPR):
Thank you Ford, and thank you PIUG Friends.
Welcome to the information age. Its well and truly here. We are living it.
It has been estimated that, if one was to take all the information generated in the 1500 years prior to the turn of the 20th Century, that is before the year 1900, that same amount of information is now generated every 31 days.
With the rate at which information on the Internet is refreshed, it is the equivalent of walking into the Library of Congress and seeing the pages in the books being constantly shuffled and the books themselves constantly changing positions on the shelves that conjures up visions like something out of a Harry Potter movie.
Ours is the first generation where knowing what our parents knew is simply not enough to succeed, this needs to be a generation of learners and problem solvers, a generation of experts at finding out where to go for answers and not relying on memory. In times of change, learners inherit the earth.
Patent information professionals already are those learners and problem solvers, and have been for a number of years. And as the information age takes hold, we find ourselves emerging from a period of change, a period where free data and end-user searching have become commonplace, a period when some may have thought that the role of the patent information professional might become obsolete. Instead, we find ourselves moving into a position of leadership, where our corporate colleagues, the attorneys, the scientists and the business planners increasingly recognize and respect that, as information becomes ever more generally available, information professionals, like everyone here today, have an even more important, not less important, role to play.
The International Patent Information Award has been established to pay tribute to one individual each year who, through their career as a dedicated patent information professional, has made a significant positive impact on patent information. It is intended to highlight the patent information profession in general and how the profession is valued by others. The newly-founded IPI-Institute is an organization which builds upon this theme and has been formed to work alongside associations for the benefit of the profession. The Award is made on an international level and has been set up to represent the pinnacle of achievement in the patent information profession. Last year, the Award was presented to Mr. Wolfgang Pilch, founder of the INPADOC patent family database.
Nominations for the IPI Award are sought from the international patent community each year and are reviewed by an International Selection Board. The Board Members that we are honored to have here today are Ms. Lucy Akers, Mr. Jeffrey Forman, Mr. Yutaka Wada and Mr. Koh Ishii from Japan, and Ford Khorsandian (who is a non-voting member of the Board).
Id now like to call on Lucy Akers and Jeff Forman to make the announcement.
Lucy Akers (IPI Award Board Member, and Chairperson
of PIUG) and Jeffrey Forman (IPI Award Board Member):
Lucy:
In selecting the recipient for 2003, the Board has had the following comments regarding the individual who has finally been chosen for the honor:
Jeff:
She has been unstinting in her pursuit of excellence in patent information and has had significant influence on key vendors. She has been an outstanding advocate and leading spokesperson for the user community over a sustained period.
Lucy:
Through her active involvement, leadership, and vision for the future of this industry, her work has led to significant improvements that have benefited both experts and non-experts alike.
Jeff:
Indeed, she has been a role model to patent information users, particularly for her early work in promoting round table discussions between various groups such as patent information providers, user groups, and patent offices.
Lucy:
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is our pleasure to announce that the recipient of the International Patent Information Award for 2003 is the past Chair of one of the PIUGs sister organizations in Europe, the Patent Documentation Group, and is currently Senior Vice President, BASF Group Information Center, Dr. Ursula Schoch-Gruebler.
Trudi Jones:
Ursula Schoch-Gruebler was born, grew up and was educated in Germany. She gained her Doctorate in Chemistry under the supervision of the Nobel laureate Prof. Georg Wittig at the University of Heidelberg, and with that, her career was off to a flying start.
She joined the former Documentation Department at BASF in Ludwigshafen as an information officer in 1976 and progressively rose through the ranks to the position of Senior Vice-President, Scientific Information. In 2002, the Department expanded to include business information and become the BASF Group Information Center.
Dr. Schoch-Grueblers list of achievements in founding patent information groups and being an active participant in committees responsible for shaping the future of patent information is impressive:
Founding member of ARPAD and IMPACT; Chairperson on the Scientific Advisory Board of FIZ-Karlsruhe; PDG President; user representative at the EPO Hearing in 1997, which helped establish the framework of the EPOs information policies; and also member of the German Ministry for Education and Research Steering Committee to devise a strategy for the future of scientific and technical information. This lady is a mover and a shaker!
Her contributions have certainly not gone un-noticed. She has been the recipient of several awards in the field of patent information, including the Economics Medallion from the German federal state of Baden-Wuerttemberg; as well as the Gmelin-Beilstein Commemorative Medallion awarded by the German Chemical Society.
Dr. Schoch-Grueblers pro-active work with patent information providers such as CAS, Derwent, FIZ-Karlsruhe and the EPO is too extensive to mention fully in the short amount of time that we have available now, but always the underpinning theme has been that of advocating quality.
Dr.
Schoch-Grueblers nomination was originally put forward by Professor Schultheiss
of FIZ Karlsruhe and has been supported by Irmgard Fischli of Novartis, Lorna
Newman, formerly of GlaxoWellcome and Stefano Caporusso of Dow.
Ford Khorsandian:
All being
well, we should have Dr. Schoch-Gruebler on the phone right now from BASF in Germany. Ursula, there are over 300 people here,
along with your colleagues, Dr. Heinz-Gerd Kneip and Dr. Mike Reynolds from
BASF, and we are all waiting to hear your voice -- are you there?
Dr. Schoch-Gruebler:
Hello Ford
and hello to all my friends and colleagues at the PIUG conference.
Ford Khorsandian:
First of
all, Mr. Wada is here and would like to say a few words to you.
Mr. Wada (IPI-Award
Selection Board Member):
Dr.
Schoch-Gruebler, on behalf of the IPI Selection Board and all of us gathered
here at the PIUG Annual Conference, we would like to thank you for your immense
contribution to patent information and congratulate you on being named the
recipient of the IPI Award.
Dr. Schoch-Gruebler:
Thank you Mr. Wada and all the other members of the IPI Selection Board
and also, of course, the people who nominated me. I must say, I
still don't really believe it! It is
indeed a great honor to receive
the IPI Award and I feel extremely privileged.
Ford
Khorsandian:
Ursula, we also have Mr. Ishii here and he has a question
for you.
Mr. Ishii (IPI-Award Selection Board Member):
Hello Dr. Schoch-Gruebler.
My question is: What did you
think when you first heard that you were to be the recipient of the
International Patent Information Award?
Dr. Schoch-Gruebler:
Hello Mr. Ishii. Well when Ian Sinclair called me, I really wasn't prepared for the news and I just thought that I must have misunderstood him.
The next thought was: why me? After all, I've just been doing my job one that is a reward in itself, working in such a stimulating and exciting field and with so many creative and motivated colleagues.
Moreover, for me it is still unbelievable that I am to join my role- models in IPI's Hall of Fame, and Ill tell you why. It reminds me of my first international meeting in 1978, the Derwent International Patent Conference, where of course Monty Hyams played the starring role. Monty's co-star was an extremely pro-active user Stu Kaback who was presenting his landmark paper, comparing online retrieval with CAS and Derwent. In the same year, at my first Inpadoc meeting, I also got to know Wolfgang Pilch a man who greatly impressed me with his brilliant, off-the-cuff solutions: the word "impossible" has no place in his vocabulary.
These are people who greatly influenced my mindset and it
really is a great honor to be joining them.
Ford Khorsandian:
The second question is from Suzan Brown, Marketing Director at CAS. Bob Massie couldnt be here because he had
to attend a Board Meeting and wont be arriving until later today. Suzan is here representing him.
Suzan Brown:
Hello Ursula. I just saw you a couple of days ago in Karlsruhe, so its great to be able to talk to you again. Congratulations on this wonderful award. I cant think of a more deserving person to receive it. Now that you are here with 300 of your closest friends, would you mind sharing a favorite memory with us about your career in patent information?
Dr. Ursula Schoch-Gruebler:
Hello
Suzan. Nice to speak with you again. Indeed, I do have a story and, just by
coincidence, it happens to be about CAS!
Let me tell you the story:
When I visited Chemical Abstracts in the early nineties, I
was asked by Bob Massie, who had just joined CAS, to provide the CAS staff with
a user view of their services. Not wishing to miss an opportunity, I promptly
dug out our wish list from the PDG of all the improvements that we'd like to
see at CAS. Now you have to know that up until this time, CAS's response time
was often measured in years. Bob's response was that it was really good to hear
some NEW demands for improvements to its services and he expected to be able to
fulfil them in the very near future. I just bit my tongue and thought to
myself: yes and pigs will fly you see parts of my wish list were already 15
years old.
I'm certainly
pleased I kept my mouth shut, because within a year, the pigs were coming in to
land on our doorstep and I soon had to throw away my old wish list. Bob Massie,
you and your team certainly blew the dust off Chemical Abstracts and you would
have had me eating my words.
What I found so
pleasing in this story, after years of frustration, was that an organization
like CAS became so responsive to users' needs. My compliments to CAS for this.
So the lesson for me was "always keep trying and never give up". And
the lesson for CAS is that much wants more!
That is my little story, Suzan.
Suzan
Brown:
Actually, I remember
you coming to CAS that day and getting up in front of our Editorial staff and
giving us, as you say, a long list of what the users needed. It was great and inspiring. In fact, Id like to encourage everybody do
the same thing! We appreciate you and
you have always been a very good friend.
Ford:
Actually Ursula, I should repeat Suzans comment a moment ago when you said it was a good lesson for you not to give up Suzan said that you didnt need to learn that.
Thank you Suzan.
Mike Tansey from Thomson Derwent could not be here today and so Bob Stembridge, who is Corporate Business Manager at Thompson Derwent is representing him. Bob also has a question for Dr. Schoch-Gruebler.
Bob
Stembridge:
Hello Ursula. Im really delighted and honored on behalf of all of your friends and colleagues, both at Derwent and everyone else here, to add my congratulations to you on receiving this Award in recognition of your immense contribution to patent information over the years.
We do have a question for you: What do you think is the single most important consideration for each patent information professional to keep in mind for the future?
Dr.
Schoch-Gruebler:
Hello Bob.
I think probably for me the most important consideration for information professionals in the future, just as it was in the past is to try to live up to their title in other words to be as professional as possible.
There are three important aspects for me:
Firstly, many database producers think that I'm a fanatic about quality. Perhaps it's true, but this is simply a logical consequence, because the very justification of our existence as professionals is to deliver quality.
Secondly, our objective is to provide our clients with what they really need not necessarily what they say they need! Moreover, not every new development or product in the information market is progress each must fit into one's long-term strategy. The skill of the information professional is (in sporting terms) to keep one's eye on the ball without losing sight of the goal!
Thirdly, as more and more information becomes available through ever more sophisticated IT developments, the information professional's function will change: from that of a provider only to that of an enabler and coordinator Im sure people will increasingly need experts to guide them to the information they seek.
Finally, Ford, before I go I would just add a couple of words of thanks. Firstly, to all my friends and colleagues from industry, the information providers and the patent offices for their cooperation and candid discussions. They share the opinion that only solutions that are commonly agreed will be beneficial for all parties and will, in the long-term, be successful and affordable.
My special thanks also go to you and TPR International for
creating this award, not least because it puts the spotlight fully on the
hidden work that goes on "behind the scenes", but which is so
important for the success of a business.
Many, many thanks for this.
Ford
Khorsandian:
Thank you Suzan and Bob and, of course, thank you most of all to Ursula for sharing your thoughts with us. We look forward to hearing from you again later this year at the IPI-Award presentation ceremony in Europe. For the general information of the audience here, as the recipient is from Europe, the actual ceremony will take place in Europe later this year. Details will be announced via the website at IPI-Award.com.
Thank you also to the PIUG for providing the venue for this announcement, and particularly to CAS for hosting this marvelous luncheon. I wonder if the CAS people wouldnt mind standing up so that we can see you.
And lastly, please dont forget the importance of the
nomination process. If there is someone
special that you have in mind who you think deserves recognition for his or her
contribution to patent information, then the only way to get that persons name
on the list of candidates is to make a nomination. Again, full details are given on the IPI-Award website at
IPI-Award.com. Its really
important. I think a lot of people
assume that a particular person who they admire and who has done a lot for the
industry is, of course, nominated and on the list. However, you would be surprised, and it really is important that
if you think of a particular person who you would like to nominate, then please
go ahead and nominate them.
Thank you everyone for your attention. Ursula thank you very much and goodbye from all of us here in Chicago.
Dr. Schoch-Gruebler:
Thank you very much again to all of my colleagues. Goodbye, and I hope you all have a wonderful conference. I hope that I can make it next year, and sorry that I couldnt attend this year.
Ford Khorsandian:
We hope that you can make it next year too. Thank you.
This concludes the announcement.
Use back to return to the previous page