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INPADOC/Family and Legal Status
This page last modified:
8 September 2012
The INPADOC database, a comprehensive resource of
approximately 62.5 million patents represented in
34 million patent families from more than 80 countries
and patenting organizations, is produced by the European
Patent Office. Effective April 30, the EPO changed
the source format of the INPADOC/Family and Legal
Status database to a new DOCDB XML structure. As
a result, the database has undergone a major restructuring
with new data, formats, and other enhancements to
both content and indexing. The improvements to INPADOC
set the stage for even more enhancements in future
which will take advantage of a more robust technical
infrastructure.
The new version of INPADOC has been released with
all the new data and features described below. For
specific questions or assistance, contact the
Dialog Knowledge Center,
available weekdays around the clock.
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New Content
- Starting with update week 200816, EPO Simple Family data has been added, consisting
of the EPO family ID (searched using the prefix EF=), the number of patents it
contains, a list of family member patents with publication dates, and an English
language abstract, if provided. New family information displays in Format 33
together with the complete INPADOC family. Simple family data (without the abstract)
also displays in Formats 35 and 39. Review the sample record.
- Together approximately 10 million family records
will contain either abstracts, search reports or
both. A search report contains cited patents and
cited literature references.
- Approximately 100,000 19th century patents
available.
- Cited references
are available for both searching and display. This
new content makes both prior art and patent
infringement screening more effective. Patent references
can be searched using CT=; literature references
RF=. Additional indicators for the EPO and WO are
also searchable for cited data.
- The format of
all patent application and publication numbers
has been normalized for ease and consistency of
retrieval. In addition, patent and application
numbers are indexed in variant forms in order to
simplify searching and identifying patent publications.
Variations include: with and without leading zeroes,
with and two- and four-digit years.
- Each patent
in the patent family table includes the week
in which it was originally added to the database.
Similarly, each legal status action also includes
the week in which it was originally added as well
as an indication if the EPO has corrected or replaced
a particular legal status entry.
- Legal Status
changes are flagged with a plus sign ( "+" ) to
indicated a positive change, or a minus sign ( "–" )
to indicate a negative change.
- International
Patent Classification Reform (version 8) codes
have been added as originally filed. INPADOC records
have been updated to reflect changes and revisions
to assigned IPC codes. The file includes all available
IPCR reclassifications, as well as the original
classifications for patents issued prior to 2006.
Any reclassifications subsequent to issue will
be added as part of weekly updates.
- Many new search, limit and display options enable
precise targeting of Core or Advanced Classification
Codes. (For more about the IPC Reform implementation
on Dialog, check the IPCR/8
page.)
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Indexing
- Searchable ECLA
classification codes (EC=) are available.
- A new field
(RA=) has been added for Reassignment Names. The
Original Assignee is indexed in the Patent Assignee
(PA=) field.
- Company Name
(CO=) has been added which includes the data in
both Patent Assignee (PA=) and Reassignment Name
(RA=) fields. The addition of the Company Name
field facilitates cross-file searching with
related databases, such as Derwent World
Patents Index (Files 351, 352, 350) and CLAIMS®/Current
Patent Legal Status (File 123).
- Full 8-digit
dates with separate prefixes for date (AD=, PD=,
LD=), month (AM=, PM=, LM=) and year (AY=, PY=,
LY=) are available. Indexing for Legal Status Year
(LY=), Legal Status Month (LM=) and Legal Status
Date (LD=) are also available.
- MAP CTPN can be used with cited patents to convert
them into patent number searches in the same or
other patent files. Similarly, MAP PNCT can be
used with any patent number, to convert it into
a cited patent search.
- Chemical segmentation
searching of titles and abstracts is available.
- Number of Countries
(NC=), Number of Patents (NP=) and Number of Legal
Status (NS=) entries are now searchable.
- Target data related to a specific patent within a patent family by using a newly added search feature. The (S) proximity operator can be used to search for a combination of attributes pertaining to a specific patent: date added, publication date, kind, country, and publication number. These attributed appear in a single row in the Patent Family Table within INPADOC records. For example, using this technique it is possible to identify US patents that have been reexamined in 1997: s pc=us b1 (s) py=1997.
- Special MAP codes have been added to automate patent and application number searches for nine major publishing authorities. Each code used with MAP command is a combination of "PN" for Publiation Number or "AN" for Application Number. For example, PNJP for Japanese Publications, ANJP for Japanese Applications, and so on. Countries and Authorities for which these new MAP codes are available are: CA, DE, FR, GP, JP, RU, US, WO, and EP.
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Display Enhancements
- INPADOC data is better organized and easier to
read when displayed in Dialog interfaces supporting
HTML. Text wraps automatically to the size of
your display window.
- New alerting
formats 15 and 16, provide a summary of changes
to the record made in the current update which
allows you to pinpoint new information more
easily.
- All full formats, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 35, 39 include
the patent family table.
- Formats 2, 35
and 39 now include abstracts. Formats 35 and 39 also include cited references.
- Special Format
4 that retrieves the patent family table plus country
families for US, EP, WO if present in the family
record.
- Format 2 is now the patent basic.
- Data presented in table format, such as patent
families, priorities, IPC codes can be easily cut
and pasted into spreadsheet and word processing
software.
- Format
33 contains the complete INPADOC family, plus the
simple family data and a representative abstract,
if available.
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Transition Notes
Alerts. Any Alerts running in
INPADOC will continue uninterrupted. The added data
and other enhancements to INPADOC described in the
preceding paragraphs may warrant a review of any
Alerts you have running. Contact
the Dialog Knowledge Center for assistance
with reviewing or managing your Alerts.
DialogLink 5 Report Templates. New
data and some changes in field labels may require
downloading updated Report Templates for INPADOC.
New Word and Excel Report Templates
for INPADOC were revised in August 2007. If
you have created customized DialogLink 5 templates
and need assistance modifying them, contact your
account representative or the Dialog
Knowledge Center.
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