Support : Publications : Chronolog Archives : March 2001

Derwent to Introduce Monthly Alerts

Beginning in April, Dialog will offer monthly Alerts in Derwent World Patents Index (Files 350/351/352). Alerts allow you to keep up-to-date with the latest patenting activity of your competitors and closely monitor patent applications in your particular area.

To create an Alert, you need only run a search query in the usual way, then you can set up an Alert so that the search is run automatically every time the file is updated. Once the Alert has been set up, it is no longer necessary to re-enter that specific search query, so this saves your company time, money, and resources, to get this valuable information.

Monthly Alerts

Monthly Alerts in Derwent World Patents Index will be run on the last day of the month to include all of the updates made to the file during that month. This will be in addition to the present alerting frequency, which runs an Alert every time Derwent WPI is updated, approximately six times per month during 2001.

"We are introducing monthly Alerts so that our customers have more flexibility in how they run repeat searches on the Derwent World Patents Index," said Martin Whitcher, Business Development Manager at Derwent. "It also provides searchers who currently input the same search manually each month, the option to have their search run automatically."

Last year the 10 millionth patent record was added to the Derwent World Patents Index. Moreover, 27,000 patent records are added to the database each update, a figure that is increasing week by week due to the general increase in patenting activity worldwide. In turn, Derwent has increased the number of updates in 2001 to 72, in order to ensure that the value-added patent records appear online in as timely a manner as possible. Derwent Alerts are clearly the most effective way to monitor the increasing volumes of patent records online.

Setting up the Alert

You set up the monthly Alert exactly the same way as the Alert that is run with each update to the database. You may include any of the special update codes, e.g., UB=9999, UE=9999, etc., if appropriate for your search

strategy. To have the Alert run monthly, include the word MONTHLY in the SAVE ALERT command, e.g., SAVE ALERT <name> MONTHLY. If you need assistance in setting up an Alert, please call the Knowledge Center at 1-800-3-DIALOG (1-800-334-2564).

A PDF version of a flyer, describing Alerts on Dialog in greater detail, highlighting the many benefits of this current awareness facility, is available for download on the Derwent web site at: http://www.derwent.com/dwpireference/dialog_alert.html.

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