Patent searchers in the petroleum industry are a spoiled lot. We have access to industry-specific patent and technical literature databases with some of the best indexing available. Among the most important are APIPAT and APILIT, the databases produced by API EnCompass, the information division of the American Petroleum Institute. These cover patents and literature in what is called downstream technology; that is, what happens to the oil after it gets out of the ground and into the refinery.They also cover chemical reactions and processes involving petroleum-based chemicals, and such diverse areas as catalysis, analytical chemistry, pollution control and other environmental concerns, chemical engineering, and oil field chemicals. In times of passion, I have said that I cannot live without these files; and it is certainly true that I could not do my job nearly as well without them. This is partly because of their in-depth indexing of refinery processing and petrochemistry, but also becausethey offer unique ways to access the patents and literature that can benefit chemical and engineering companies as well as petroleum companies. CURRENT STATUS API has been trying since last year to place the API EnCompass information products, particularly the patent and literature databases--APIPAT, APILIT, and API EnCompass News (formerly APIBIZ)--into a new management situation that would distribute them more effectively and make them profitable, thereby ensuring their continued existence. API considered several possibilities. These included: * Keeping EnCompass within API and raising revenues or cutting costs enough to make it profitable. This was rejected because API doesn't have the in-house marketing infrastructure to increase customers, and current customers can't take a substantial price hike. * Hiring an outside company that could manage EnCompass and introduce enough efficiencies to make it self-supporting.
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