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IFI
— The International Connection
Many patent searchers know the CLAIMS®
U.S. Patents database as the premier source of US patent information,
but you might not realize that this IFI database can be a valuable and
unique resource in your international patent searches as well.
Non-US patent and application numbers
CLAIMS®
records include equivalent patent numbers from five European countries
for many chemical patents issued between 1950 and 1979. Over 120,000
records in the CLAIMS®
file provide publication numbers for patents granted in Belgium (BE),
Germany (DE), France (FR), Great Britain (GB) and the Netherlands (NL).
You can search the European numbers in the patent number field, using
the country code and format appropriate for the host system.
In addition to the granted patent numbers, you can search non-US priority
application numbers and dates in all CLAIMS®
chemical patent records in the database, from 1950 to date. You will
also find complete U.S. filing data, with related filings, for all chemical
records. For non-chemical records, priority information and US filing
data appear from 1971 forward. The non-US filing information includes
standardized PCT filing numbers and dates, along with PCT publication
data when available.
Try using these non-US reference numbers when you want to find a US
equivalent to an older non-US patent or application. It's also an important
resource when researching patent families for older patents.
More features to make your international patent searching easier.
IFI makes it easy for you to include the CLAIMS®
database in your international patent searches by providing International
Patent Classifications (IPCs) as well as text of abstracts or claims
for all the records in the database. This means you can often search
CLAIMS®
using the same strategy you prepared for searching in an international
patent database. For US patents issued prior to 1971, IPCs are available
only in the CLAIMS®
database.
The IFI database also provides information about the location of inventors
and companies. All standardized assignee names include a country code
indicating the country of origin for non-US companies. The inventor
field provides country codes, as well as complete inventor mailing addresses
for unassigned patents.
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Harry
Allcock — The Face of IFI
Harry M. Allcock, Vice President, celebrates 39 years with the IFI
Every company has a unique "face"-whether it is an owner,
a significant employee, or simply a spokesperson--who becomes so closely
identified with the company that they become nearly synonymous with
it. IFI has such a face, and it belongs to Harry Allcock.
Harry Allcock joined IFI on August 24, 1961, starting out as a salesman
with a degree in Business Administration from George Washington University
and prior sales experience. Two years later he was promoted to sales
manager, and in 1967, was made Vice President of IFI. During his 39-year+
career, Harry has had the opportunity to observe--and help bring about--some
of the key events that shaped the U.S. patent industry as we know it
today. We asked Harry to share some of his insights as he nears four
decades of service with IFI. His response tells us not just the Harry
Allcock story, but the story of IFI, and that of the patent industry
itself.
Key participant in an emerging industry
Harry recalls, "When I first joined IFI, the product we sold was
the Uniterm Index, a printed publication and an index to all U.S. chemical
patents. In 1962, the product was computerized and became the first
index-searchable patent database on IBM computers."
"At that time," Harry continues, "most major corporations
were buying computers for in-house use. So IFI had to create a software
package designed to be used on their in-house computer. Our first application
was written for the IBM 1401. In 1963, Gulf Oil purchased the database
and wrote a new software program for a more sophisticated computer-the
IBM 7070. Most of the other petroleum companies such as Chevron, had
the same computer, and approximately ten companies bought the database
immediately. No changes were made to the database until 1971."
Harry recounts that when DuPont offered a new file that they had created
to the public, IFI had the foresight to immediately purchase the database
and bring the key people that designed the system for DuPont together
to open an IFI office in Wilmington, Delaware. During 1972, IFI merged
the DuPont database with the IFI database and offered a sophisticated
chemical patent index known as the Comprehensive Database. "This
file is still in existence and the indexing system will accept all new
patents without any problems," Harry explains.
In 1974, a new company by the name of Lockheed Missile and Space Company
offered patent searchers an online service. Harry proudly points out
that IFI was one of the first commercial databases to appear on this
online network. Today IFI databases are available for online searching
in the Dialog Corporation, Questel•Orbit, and STN International.
IFI also offers bibliographic data and the main claim on an Internet
service, known as ChemWeb.
During the 1990s, as the U.S. Patent Office began to offer their patent
services at very low cost, Harry cautiously observed many entrepreneurial
companies enter the patent scene. But the threat was short-lived. Harry
explains, "Most of those companies were either purchased by large
corporations or simply went out of business…. Fortunately, due
to our customer's high regard for IFI products, and to the mutual loyalty
between IFI and our customers, we have remained an industry leader."
Valued experience
Today, Harry remains an integral player at IFI and a
stabilizing force in the fast-changing patent industry. He provided
valuable perspectives during the company's purchase in 1967 by Plenum
Publishing Corporation, and during subsequent purchases by Kluwer Academic
(in 1998) and Aspen Law & Business, (in 1999) both divisions of
Wolters Kluwer. Day-to-day, he maintains close contact with IFI's customer
base from his solo office located in Wilmington, North Carolina, and
he participates in IFI and other industry conferences worldwide.
One of the founding members of the Patent Industry User's Group, Harry
remains very active in the group today. Recounting how the PIUG got
started, Harry says, "Back in 1964, IFI decided we needed a Quality
Control committed to help design products we sold to the industry. We
held an annual user conference to discuss new products needed by the
industry and methods to develop these products. Under the auspices of
the Quality Control committee, the meetings became so successful that
it was an annual event, and has existed up until 1999."
Thinking ahead
Harry predicts that future patent search products will be heavily internet-related
and will offer much more flexibility for the user at less cost. He notes
that IFI expects to have an Internet site in the first quarter of 2001.
His advice to patent professionals just getting started in this new
environment? "The main thing is to learn the intricacies…learn
all the online systems and be familiar with the use of the Internet.
Also, the patent user must learn the rules of the patent office, the
various search systems, methods of searching, and have a lot of patience."
He stresses, "There's a long learning curve involved. At IFI, we
require 6-months of training before an indexer works alone."
Harry's proudest accomplishment is being able to maintain customers
over 39-year period. He also takes pride in knowing his customers need
the services produced by IFI to conduct a sophisticated patent search.
IFI salutes Harry Allcock on his 39 years of exemplary service.
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Found
— 94,000 missing patents!
During
1971-74, there were 94,000 patents that the PTO did not make available
in electronic format. This explains why you will find an asterisk noting
incomplete coverage on every database providers' range of coverage for
this four-year period. Even the PTO website itself was excluded! (The
PTO site covers only patents issued after 1976.)
IFI has those 94,000 patent references! And they can be found in the
CLAIMS®
database, also known as IFIPAT or File 340, depending on the database
provider you choose to use. IFI has keyed the data for those missing
patents, using a variety of sources, including the Official Gazette
and the University of Delaware, a patent depository library.
These 94,000 patent records include the standard bibliographic information,
including the inventor name, filing data, USPTO classifications, IPCs,
OG claim and, of course, the standardized assignee name. If you are
searching a database that does not include these patent records, you
are missing over 30% of the patents issued in that time period!
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New
IFI tools help monitor patenting activity
Patent Intelligence and Technology Report 2000 remains
the definitive source for a complete and reliable picture of all significant
U.S. patent activity for the previous year. Here you'll find detailed
statistics, company profiles and analysis of the patenting activity
of every assignee who received 10 or more U.S. utility patents or statutory
registrations -- over 1,600 companies from 33 countries.
New electronic format speeds your search
Now, in addition to the monthly and annual analysis
of U.S. patent ownership, IFI offers a comprehensive 10-year report
and cumulative monthly updates in electronic form. The 10-year Patent
Intelligence & Technology Report helps you analyze the patenting
activity of companies receiving U.S. patents. It lets you track the
monthly patenting activity of particular companies by simply checking
the company name list to find the relative ranking and number of patents
issued to a company. From there, hyperlink to a company profile showing
the distribution of that company's patents in each USPTO class and International
Patent Classification (IPC). The monthly Report also helps you pinpoint
patent activity growth areas by USPTO subject classification or the
Internal Patent Classification. You'll learn in which technologies are
the most patents being issued, which companies are the leaders in a
technology, and how U.S. patenting activity compares with that of companies
around the world.
The monthly Patent Intelligence and Technology Report
can be accessed and viewed on your PC via your Internet web browser.
No other special software is required. You can review the Report at
IFI's website, www.ificlaims.com, or you can load it onto your PC's
hard drive for viewing locally. The Report can also be loaded on your
internal server for distribution through your Intranet.
If you are not currently subscribing to the Patent Intelligence
and Technology Report 2000, or the monthly electronic edition,
call 1-800-638-8437.
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Legal
Corner:
CLAIMS® Current Patent Legal Status
For more than a decade, IFI has provided you with notices of post-issuance
actions on US patents. Previously called CLAIMS®
Reassignment and Reexamination, the database name has been changed to
CLAIMS®
Current Patent Legal Status, reflecting the wider variety of legal status
information for U.S. patents than just the two actions named in the
previous title. Coverage includes: reassignments, reexamination requests
and results, extensions, expirations, reinstatements, reissue requests
and reissue notices, adverse decisions in interference actions, certificate
of correction notices and disclaimer/dedication data. The information
is obtained from the US Patent Office and the USPTO Official Gazette.
Just as you enjoy the benefits of some of the value-added features we
offer in our patent records, in particular assignee name standardization
and chemical indexing, some enhancements to our Legal Status database
also can assist you with cleaner, easier and more comprehensive searching.
For example, for greater clarity on tracing reassignments, we have arranged
the data in clearly labeled and searchable fields. We offer you: assignor,
reassignee, recordation date, reel & frame and contact, with each
reassignment clearly delineated in the record display. By splitting
the assignee from the reassignee, you can search just on the reassignee
field to find the patents acquired by a company. We do provide you with
the IFI standardized name of the assignee at time of issue, but we encourage
you to use the index feature that STN, Dialog and Questel·Orbit offer
when searching for assignors and reassignees, as our most extensive
assignee name standardization process is reserved currently for our
main patent records database. If you would like to order a copy of our
Assignee Term List to reference our standardized company names, please
call 800-331-4955.
Other data enhancements we offer in post-issuance actions include all
the information you need to decide whether you should take further action.
Records of adverse decisions in interference actions note the specific
claims affected by the decision, while disclaimer notices may refer
to specific claims as well as providing the effective date of the disclaimer.
Reexamination records include a brief description of the reexamination
results along with the text of a pertinent claim as it was published
in the Official Gazette.
When term extensions are granted to pharmaceutical patents by the USPTO,
the CLAIMS®
Current Patent Legal Status database records the tradename of the patented
drug, as well as the length of the term extension and the revised expiration
date for the patent.
In addition to enhancing the value of legal status notices by providing
more information, we are dedicated to improving the quality and reliability
of the data we receive from the USPTO. In this effort we investigate
and correct all errors that are reported to us, and also carefully check
the data we receive from the Patent Office for inconsistencies revealing
inaccurate data.
Watch this section for more updates and information on Legal Status
from IFI. We welcome your commentary and questions.
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Chemistry
Made Easy
(for non-chemists and chemists)
Have you ever wished for a quick and simple way to find every patent
that mentions a polymer, regardless of type? How about patents dealing
with any variety of enzyme?
Thanks to IFI's indexing system for chemical patents, you can easily
search these topics, and many others, using a special group of IFI descriptors
known as Collection Terms. IFI's Collection Terms encompass broad chemical
concepts, and are assigned to patent records based on indexing by an
IFI chemist, who summarizes the entire patent document using IFI's controlled
descriptor system.
Searching generically for concepts such as enzymes is notoriously difficult,
since patents may describe many specific enzymes by name without ever
using the word "enzyme". By searching the single IFI Collection
Term for enzymes, you will retrieve every US chemical patent that has
issued since 1950 and is indexed by any specific enzyme name (such as
acetylcholinesterase), or enzyme category (such as hydrolases).
You can search Collection Terms in the CLAIMS®
Uniterm database by searching the five-digit Uniterm Number (10003 for
enzymes) using the UN qualifier. Look in the IFI General Term Thesaurus
for a complete list of Collection Terms, or contact IFI for more information.
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Assignee
Alert
These companies are now filing US patents under new names:
Advanced RISC Machines Ltd GB is now
ARM Ltd GB
Batesville Casket Co Inc is now
Batesville Services Inc
Foveonics Inc is now
Foveon Inc
Gateway 2000 Inc is now
Gateway Inc
Disney, Walt Co The is now
Disney Enterprises Inc
Just for fun--some innovative assignee names:
Apricot Computers Ltd GB
Scent-Sation Inc (scented undies)
Got-a-Gene AB SE
Cool Eggspress (for cooling and transporting eggs)
Made in the Shades Optical Inc
When it comes to fishing tackle, company names get really inventive:
Fur Reel Inc
Lure'em In Inc
E Z Catch And Co
Lazy Fisherman Inc
Kamoflazh Ltd Inc
Physh Inc
Wanabe Outdoors
Magic Products Inc
Miracle Tackle Co Inc
Catch All Enterprises Inc
Fish Stories Unlimited Inc
Just One Good Idea
Fishers Of Men Corp
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What's
New:
IFI's Patent Assignee Name Thesaurus
Do you want to monitor the patent activity of a company? You'll find
the company names you need to search in the new IFI Patent Assignee
Name Thesaurus.
This electronic reference tool helps you track company name changes,
and gives you the IFI standardized form for company names that often
have dozens of variations in format and spelling.
Standardized names and more.
You can search the standardized company names in the IFI CLAIMS®
U.S. Patents database, and you can improve you searches in other databases
by searching the name variations provided in the Assignee Thesaurus.
The thesaurus includes: company name changes, divisions and parents,
common abbreviations, name translations, US government agencies, inverted
names, IFI company codes, plus numerous cross references and explanatory
notes compiled by IFI during 25 years of standardization.
Easy-to-use electronic format
You can view the thesaurus using a standard internet
browser, and hyperlink to other IFI products and references on the internet.
You also have the option of saving your selected company names in a
format that you can upload for searching through an online host. IFI
licenses the thesaurus for company-wide access at a cost of $7,500.00
annually, saving you the time and expense of duplicating company research
already done by IFI. For order information, call: 1-800-638-8437. [Note:
is this the correct info/order number for this product?]
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Quick
Tip
Most
searchers know that patent citations offer one more way of locating
patent references that are difficult or impossible to find through other
methods. The CLAIMS®
database provides a unique source of all US patent references cited
by examiners in every US patent issued since 1947.
To see the earlier patent numbers cited by a patent, simply display
the patent record in the CLAIMS®
US Patents database on Dialog (format 22), Questel•Orbit (format
BIB), or STN (format FP). These records will also display a count of
the number of later citing patents.
To find patent numbers of citing patents, use the CLAIMS®
Citation database on Dialog (Files 220, 221, 222). Only CLAIMS®
Citation provides citing patent numbers issued prior to 1971. For more
information, call the IFI help desk at 800-331-4955.
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World's
most famous patent examiner
In 1905, a 26-year-old, German-born patent examiner who was studying
for his doctorate at the University of Zurich, Albert Einstein, evolved
the special theory of relativity, which, among other things, defines
the equivalency of mass and energy. This is expressed in the most famous
equation ever written: E=mc2.
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Copyright
© Aspen Publishers, Inc.
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