Companies need to make better use of databases to sharpen their edge in innovation, experts said at the Patent Information Annual Conference of China in Beijing last week.

"In the era of big data, holding comprehensive and accurate information means having access to a core asset," Bai Guangqing, president of the Intellectual Property Publishing House, told China Daily during the meeting.

"In the sea of information, how to discover relationships between various data and increase data mining efficiency through IT is the key to helping improve R&D."