Patent mapping is a tool for representing complex patent landscapes, i.e., creating actionable intelligence. According to the Paual Germeraad, former VP of Research, Avery Dennison, “Frankly, it’s beyond me why any company in this day and age would even attempts to do R&D without the insights that patent mapping gives you. It’s like trying to navigate your company’s future blind without a map”.

Maps are graphical representation of various information’s gathered from a variety of sources. Map communication is the component of thematic mapping, the purpose of which is to represent one of the many possible results of the knowledge base. Maps are tools for the researcher and patent professional in finding and representing patterns and relationships among mapped data. Making association is an important part of our thinking. We make connection all the time. This ability is of great importance in the area of patents.

Rational patent mapping is defined as interpretive distillation of large amount of often complex and unorganized data into one or more high value representations useful in making business decisions. Patent mapping is based on clustering, aggregation and other operations to extract the technological value from patents to highlight specific features and provide insights on technological developments in a particular technological domain.

There are no preset limits to the kinds of representation. This make patent mapping as much as art as science, because it has to be ensured that these representations can fulfill the role of a knowledge tool rather than visual tools.

It is a well known fact that maps do not require language skills. An illiterate will most likely be able to interpret a map but not written directions. Still most of the travel and real estate websites on the net do not use maps. I strongly believe that all website must have a small outline map of the city where the business is located and may be of the country as well.

Business map, in their very basic format, have the outline or the boundary of the city. The location of the business can be shown as a colored dot or the business name or your logo can also be shown instead of a dot. A catchy phrase at the bottom or middle of the map can summarize your business. The inset of such a city map can have the country map with basic demarcations of the state or province boundaries and your city shown prominently.

This conveys to the visitor a sense of belonging, a sense of direction, that your business is located in the West or East or North or South. In all probability he will remember the general location and what your business ddeals with, better than the words of the address. We humans have a way with pictures. Now the question comes, how to get the map and then how to edit it as suited to your requirements. There are many mapping sites which provide you with outline maps at low costs. You can visit them and buy these fully editable maps and feed your specific information and use it in your website.

But what you need is a small country outline map, why pay $50 or more to an online mapping site for it. Yes you are right. A country outline map should be available for $20 or may be $10 or even free. So how do you create a free map for your site. Just go over to Google Earth or Google Map, display your country’s full extent, save the screen as image. Now use Adobe Illustrator or Macromedia Freehand to vectorise the outline. You got your vector country outline map. Add the relevant information and use it the way you want.

All simple maps can be easily created by this method but for big and complicated maps you need cartographers or map makers. All maps can not be produced by just drawing lines, you need GIS exports, some re-specifications, may be some adjustments and a pleasing design which conforms to the use of the map. No wonder, map making is a lovely amalgamation of art and science.

Have you ever looked at a map and become totally interested and scanned each area over and over again, memorizing the landscape, names of towns, streets, cities and states? Have you ever picked up a giant Atlas book and spent hours looking it over? If you have you are certainly not alone and when looking down on a map or map book it’s almost like an aerial view of things. Many people are so intrigued with maps that it is almost amazing.

If you love maps and map books, if you are someone who loves to use Google Earth and understand the layout of the land in relation to everything else, then let me recommend one of the best giant atlas books that I have ever seen. In fact this is the Atlas that I own myself;

“The Times Atlas of the World; Comprehensive Edition” by John Bartholomew & Son, LTD Edinburgh; 1967

Each country and state is listed along with all the major cities in each. All the resources are also listed, populations as well. Energy resources, natural resources, agricultural resources, weather and animal distribution. The Moon’s map is also in this book, along with all the ocean floors to the best of mankind’s ability at the time of publication. Earthquake faults, volcanoes and every island, all included. The Atlas has broken the world by continent and region, with information about each.

Although, the boundary lines and names of many nations have changed since then, this Atlas is spectacular in every regard, it’s where I go to answer questions about our World, even before I hit the Internet for the updated information. Get an atlas for your family and you’ll be glad you did.

There are many potential applications for an interactive US map. Many government websites use United States maps of counties to show census data (e.g. highest-income counties), geography of recession, employment gains or losses by county, map of bank failures, election results etc. Business websites use interactive maps to show branch offices, sales figures by states, driving directions, traveling route maps, or as store locator, property finder, to improve the easiness of website navigation.

With an interactive U.S. map showing all states and counties, visitors can firstly click on a state (e.g. New York, Florida) from the map, see a map with counties within that state. Visitors can then simply roll the mouse cursor over a county on the map and the information about that county will show in a pop up box instantly, with text, images and hyperlinks. Then the visitor can click the links in the tool tip to get further information or redirected to a corresponding page.

As you might be aware, there are more than 3000 counties or county-equivalent administrative units in the United States of America. There are on average 62 counties per state. The state with the state with the highest number is Texas, and the lowest number of counties is Delaware. It would take you an enormous amount of time and effort if you try to create a US map with all counties by drawing from scratch using a drawing software such as Photoshop or PowerPoint.

You can save your time by buying map templates for the US, including map templates for all the US counties. If you need to use the map in your Microsoft Word, PowerPoint or Excel files, then all you need is a vector map graphic file. In order to be able to set color for each different county, you need to ensure the map graphic file you purchase contains multiple layers, so that each layer can have its own color and attribute settings.

If you need to use the US county map online with interactive functions, you can consider using Google maps or an interactive map making software.

Google Maps is most people’s first idea of mapping software. Google Maps provides an online solution to pinpoint locations on the map by simply typing in an address or using latitude and longitude coordinates. However, Google Maps does not provide an easy solution if you need to set counties in different color, or display information upon mouse roll over on a state or county.

In addition, Google Maps uses JavaScript extensively. Your user’s browser must have Javascript enabled to view the map correctly, and any customization requires an in depth understanding of Google Map API. This makes Google Map an overkill and not suitable to use for website navigation and information retrieval base on state or county.

To create an interactive US map with all counties, another option is to use an interactive map building software. Most interactive mapping software come with ready made US map templates, including county maps for every state. You can set the county’s color, mouse over text, hyperlink, and also edit the text and image for roll over tooltip. You can create national, regional, state, and county maps with clickable areas, and can be easily embed to web page without any Javascript or API coding.

In addition to U.S. county maps, many interactive mapping software also contains maps of the countries of the world, including Europe, China, Asia, Africa, Australia and other maps. Most importantly, you can import your own graphic or illustrations instead of country map templates, so to convert any static images into an interactive, clickable map.

Traditionally, when people were looking for a new restaurant, they would pick up a copy of Zagat’s or some other fancy food guide. But in just a few short years, online maps have come a long way and now offer local information on businesses, shops and eateries too. Sites like Google Maps allow users to create their own maps of favorite establishments that they can save or share with friends and family. There are hundreds of food maps online, although a few noteworthy ideas have risen to the top.

On the West Coast, what could be better than eating a real, authentic Mexican taco out of a truck? With heaping portions, loads of options and mama’s homemade guacamole, you just cannot go wrong. You just can’t get that level of deliciousness from a restaurant, Californians say. However, it can be tricky to locate these trucks, especially if you are from out-of-town. Thus, Yumtacos was born.

Creator Joshua Lurie-Terrell of Sacramento, California said he had been keeping a list of the best taco trucks for quite some time. “As soon as friends of mine knew I had this list, people were calling me all the time,” he admits. From there, transferring the data onto a Google map was no problem. Once the site was live, people could add their own taco truck sightings. Yum Tacos primarily focuses on California, although authentic Mexican taco trucks have been plotted from as far away as Baltimore, Maryland.

Another site, Chinesefoodmap, is based on mapping out the Chinese restaurant locations for Chinese immigrants. Web users will also have access to reviews, menus, driving directions and other local information. Creator Brian Hui first created this site only in Chinese and focusing on Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay Chinese food establishments. However, the site has grown nationwide to metros like Houston, Seattle and Atlanta, and an English version inevitably popped up as well.

Users of Google Maps have created a number of restaurant “mashups” based on the Google template. One of the most notable sites is Menurequest, which features more than 5,000 links in New York, San Diego, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Napa Valley, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington DC. Users can visit the restaurant’s website, read reviews, get driving directions and make online reservations through this amazing map. These are just a few of the food maps available to culinary curators. Perhaps your very own city has a site designed just for hungry local residents like you.

Whether you are a student, teacher, professor, an employee or CEO of a company, an Army General or an administrative officer, a doctor or an engineer, a financial wizard or a plain banker, you are required to make a presentation sometime. Invariably, a map or geospatial intelligence is an essential part of any presentation today. And why not, with GPS, Google maps and geospatial technology, it has become so easy to relate data to ground.

The age old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words is more true for maps in a presentation. The data which may take tens of slides to represent or explain can be easily put in just one thematic map. But how to make it without any GIS or geographical analysis tools. You can find a right image by searching the net by Google Image search. Sounds easy, but no. There are so many map images available on the net but can you use them. May be no, why? The image may be copyrighted. So why not use images from ShutterStock or some similar website offering images. Here also you need to purchase license and spend hours searching for the right map or image which matches the theme of your presentation.

So should I hire a graphics artist to make a custom design for me. If the presentation is so important that you can spend hundreds of dollars for a custom map, then it is okay. But if you want to do the job in minimal budget with maximum output then the answer lies in freeform PPT maps editable in powerpoint software itself. Yes, no need purchase an expensive photo editor, all you need are editable freeform maps and manipulate them with click and select in the PowerPoint program.

You can download a free Alabama County Freeform Presentation from https://gumroad.com/l/udUA with fully editable content and easy explanation to conform the slides to your selected theme. We have spent a lot of time to painstakingly trace all the counties as freeforms. You can even zoom one county freeform to full slide and it will still retain its shape. An image if so zoomed will definitely break into pixels and not usable at all. All these freeform counties can be selected in one go and filled with single color or singly, it all depends on what you want to present.

So use the Alabama Free PPT map as you want for a while, tweak it, play with it and you will be so happy that it is so easy to make your own design in minutes. And if you want the whole of US counties as editable freeforms, please do let me know.

This is a very big world and it is very easy to get lost in it if you do not have precise directions on where you are going. Thousands of years ago people would look at the stars to guide them to their destination. They had no idea how long it would take if they had never been there before and they had no clue as to whether or not there would be certain landmarks along the way.

Cartographers changed the world for people everywhere by developing maps. The map is one of the most used tools humans use every single day of their lives. It may be the simple road map or it may be a complex map of the terrain and geography. This is a subject that everyone should know something about and in this article you can find out some of the basic information that you may need.

What are maps?

Maps are a representation of a certain space. The map is used to find geographical information about a certain area. While there are many different types of maps, the most heavily used map is the one marked with streets and highways. People will use this type of map to find out how to get to a certain destination. The map has changed considerably over the years. Whereas it was once mainly topographical and showed just large landmarks, the modern map is digital and spoken through a GPS unit.

When did maps become electronic?

For the way that most people think of electronic maps, it would be with the invention of mapping websites such as Google Maps or Mapquest. These websites allowed people to come in, type in their destination, and provided them with exact turn-by-turn directions in order to get to where they needed to go. At first the directions were entirely reliant upon paper maps that have been inputted into the systems but these changed as satellite images and details became more readily available. In fact you could actually say that it was satellite images and satellites that were the first electronic maps. They helped the military extraordinarily by showing them the layout of the land.

How often are maps updated?

Unfortunately there is not a set answer for this question. Obviously a paper map is updated far less than a digital map or one found on the internet. A paper map may be updated every one or two years as new subdivisions are added and new streets are formed. This is especially true of a local city map. The map you find on the internet through Google, Mapquest or any other mapping site usually take less time but it can still be up to a year or more before the information is put in.

The problem is that all addresses have to be confirmed and verified. This takes time. GPS maps are updated usually the most frequently because there are more users inputting data that helps the GPS provider increase their coverage areas. If you are trying to find a location and cannot locate it on a map, you may want to find out the closest town and call the City Hall for directions. They can at least point you in the right way. You may even have to stop at a gas station for directions.

What is Google Earth?

Google Earth is a brand new feature provided by Google. It is an entirely new way of viewing a destination or a location. It gives you the versatility and freedom of actually seeing real time data on locations that you type in. You can explore the entire world with Google Earth. It is the ultimate in maps because you can see things as they happen and even visit places that would be impossible typically. To get Google Earth all you have to do is download the software from the Google website and you will be off exploring the world.

The modern map is ingrained into every aspect of our lives, from commuting, to ordering products on the internet and even picking the best restaurant in your area. You use and depend on them far more than you probably realize, guiding you through our world of hyper-technology in ever more efficient and helpful ways.

Apps have become the champions of the digital map and a myriad of apps make use of GPS overlays guiding you to desired destinations. A few of the more complex mapping apps include an impressive combination of GPS, historical mapping and user-input. The app allows people to quickly and accurately report locations of crimes.

Not only do these reports allow police to quickly respond with pinpoint accuracy, but they are logged in a database where over time, patterns of different crimes in different areas are built up resulting in “warning zones” of high risk areas. Using historical map data as a canvas and GPS points as ink, this revolutionary app has stitched an informative mosaic into cyberspace.

At the core of most modern mapping conveniences, GPS satellites are the unsung heroes of our modern world. Without them, we would have no global positioning network or digital mapping systems, plunging the world into absolute chaos. Planes wouldn’t know where they were, car sat-navs will be driving people into fields, (more than they do already) and you would have to actually go outside and physically look for good restaurants… a horrifying thought.

Without modern mapping conveniences, society would grind to a halt and be thrown back in time by decades. No longer would you be able to put an address into a gadget and have it tell you where to go, you would have to read road signs and ask people for directions. It would be utter pandemonium

We take maps for granted in this day and age because we rarely ever see them in their classical form. Probably the most obvious mapping service used is Google maps, which not only allows you to look at road maps anywhere on the planet, but also allows you to see individual buildings; extremely useful when trying to find out what a place looks like as well as where it is.

Maps have been constantly evolving since their inception and have been crucial to society at every stage in history. This is still true today and will be true for as long as people need to get from A to B.