This paper presents concepts and methodologies for conducting research studies using the patent document with source of technological information to verify the state of the art system called "Dilution Tunnel" for studies of vehicle emissions. This study aims to demonstrate, among other things, the importance of information management as a mechanism to support technology monitoring for decision making, with the main vector analysis of technological information in patent documents and the role of the information professional using the methodologies search strategies in banks and databases as raw material for the studies of prospecting. Technological forecasting methods were initially used by prior art searches and similarity in patent databases, national and international, as search strategies appropriate to the resources available in each database. This work presents the stage of competitive intelligence where they are identified, mapped, collected, processed and analyzed the information extracted from patent databases to generate knowledge maps as an aid to strategic thinking aimed at facilitating and supporting decision making toward the development of the industrial sector. With the results obtained it was possible to identify the percentage of patent documents deposited by academic, business, research institutions and individuals, and to identify the technological routes and holding companies of such technologies in the world.
Technology foresight; Prospective studies; Patents; Information technology; Information Science
