Support : Publications : Chronolog Archives : November/December 2004

CLAIMS^®/U.S. Patent Files Reload Completed

CLAIMS®/U.S. Patents (Files 340) was reloaded on Dialog. During the reload process IFI CLAIMS® Patent Services, the database producer, updates the U.S. Classification codes assigned to existing patents to match classification changes made by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) during the previous year. Additional reload enhancements include:

• Corrections and further standardization of patent assignee names
  
  
• Updates to legal status flags (e.g., REASSIGNED, REEXAMINED) to note additional post-issuance legal status information in CLAIMS®/Current Patent Legal Status (File 123)
  
  
• Miscellaneous data and chemical indexing corrections

In addition to the CLAIMS® granted patent record, PGP (Pre-Grant Published Application) records, introduced in October 2001, were also updated with the reload enhancements. The Dialog version merges PGPs and granted patents into a single record; therefore, each Dialog record represents one U.S. invention. This streamlines search and display and is a feature offered only on Dialog.

Business Method Patent (BMP) indexing, added to CLAIMS® granted patent records in June of 2002, has also been reloaded and includes the enhancements described above. You can display Business Method indexing using predefined Format 9, or the BI user defined format code (e.g., T S3/2,BI/1-5). With this reload Business Method indexing is current through 2004, and IFI continues to index back to 1998.

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