This survey included 59 secondary researches of traditional pharmaceutical patent literatures. The analysis was made on statistical indicator of the amount of annual papers, authors, institutions, published journals and re-search contents. The survey revealed that in the field of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), the number of sec-ondary research of patent literature was on the increase, and the degree of concern of TCM patent was far more than others. This survey not only assisted the understanding of current condition of TCM patent literatures, but also held its development trend in order to apply it in the studies.

This study was aimed to search and analyze patents of Chinese herb published both at home and abroad in 2010. The Derwent World Patents Index (DWPI) was used as database source. A total of 8 704 Chinese herb patent records were retrieved. And the geographical distribution was concentrated in China. The technological field was mainly on hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, lower back pain, cough and other diseases. Innovations on formulation and preparation method also required special attention. In addition, through the analysis on patent attribution agency, some well-known Chinese enterprises, who aim to gain the initiative in specific technical areas, have actively applied a number of patents in specific areas.

Objective Taking typical cases of Western medicine as an example,this paper explores the connection between Chinese and Western medicine on the understanding of tongue elephants.Methods After collecting the literature with tongue diagram attached to the clinical imaging column published in NEJM magazine,extracting the symptoms,signs and Western medicine disease information recorded in the literature,the tongue diagram was diagnosed from three aspects:tongue quality,tongue moss and sublingual meridians,and whether the symptoms and signs of tongue correspond to a certain diagnosis result,and the results were analyzed.Results A total of 48 articles were included,including 6 literature on abnormal tongue dynamics,which could correspond to abnormal tongue morphology in traditional Chinese medicine.Thirty-four cases of abnormal tongue shape were found.Among them,12 cases could be diagnosed with corresponding TCM tongue diagnosis,including 7 cases of abnormal tongue shape and 5 cases of abnormal coating.The remaining 22 cases were secondary changes in tongue structure.There were 8 articles on abnormal tongue color,including 1 abnormal tongue color,1 abnormal sublingual chord,and 6 abnormal lichen color.Conclusion Starting from the form and function,explore the connection between Chinese medicine and Western medicine in their understanding of tongue diagnosis,and promote the objectification and standardization of Chinese medicine tongue diagnosis.