Bluesheet Contents     PDF version

File Description [top]

The INPADOC/Family and Legal Status Database (File 345), is produced by the European Patent Office (EPO) and describes patents issued by 98 countries and patenting organizations. The International Patent Documentation Center (INPADOC) was formed in 1972 with the support of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to provide a centralized bibliographic source for patent documents. INPADOC is now part of the European Patent Documentation System operated by the European Patent Office (EPO).

The DIALOG version of the INPADOC database is unique in that it brings together equivalent patents that share common priorities for a particular invention in a single family record. The 36.3 million patent family records contain information on over 65 million patents and 44 million legal status actions. The newly reloaded version of Inpadoc also includes abstracts and search reports (cited patents and cited literature references) from key patenting offices such as EPO, WIPO, Japan, and the United States. Starting with week 200816, EPO's simple families and IDs, and a representative English abstract, if provided, are also available for browsing.

An Inpadoc patent family record typically contains several kinds of data: the patent table, bibliographic data for each patent, and legal status actions if applicable. The patent table provides an overview of the family members and includes patent country, number, kind and date for each patent in the family, its corresponding local application number and date, and the week in which the patent was originally added to the database. Family priorities contain the application country, number, kind and date.

The bibiliographic data consists of patent title, generally available in one or more languages, patent assignees and inventors, International Patent Classification (IPC) codes including the recent IPCR/8 reclassification, European Classification (ECLA) codes, and and national classification codes such as Japanese FI terms and F terms, and US class codes. For European and PCT patents, designated states are also provided.

Legal status actions are provided for 47 countries and include the patent number, the gazette date announcing the action, the legal status code, the equivalent text description, and the week in which the action was added to the database.

File 253 is available for ONline Training And Practice.

Tips [top]

Subject Coverage [top]

All areas of technology patented in the participating countries are included in the database. Participating countries are listed on page 2 of the Bluesheet.

Sources [top]

Data is provided by cooperating patent offices in 98 countries, including the EPO, and Patent Cooperation Treaty (WIPO) members as shown in the table below. Legal Status information is provided for 47 countries. Countries for which legal status is available are flagged with an asterisk.

Additional legal status information pertaining to entry into the national phase from a PCT filing is provided in WO legal status for Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Latvia, Russian Federation, Slovak Republic, and Uzbekistan.

• African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI) - OA
• African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) - AP
• Algeria - DZ
• Argentina* - AR
• Australia* - AU
• Austria* - AT
• Belgium* - BE
• Bosnia & Herzegovina - BA
• Brazil* - BR
• Bulgaria - BG
• Byelarus - BY
• Canada* - CA
• Chile* - CL
• China* - CN
• Colombia* - CO
• Costa Rica - CR
• Croatia - HR
• Cuba* - CU
• Cyprus - CY
• Czech Republic* - CZ
• Czechoslovakia* - CS
• Denmark* - DK
• Dominican Republic - DO
• Ecuador - EC
• Egypt - EG
• El Salvador - SV
• Estonia* - EE
• Eurasian Patent Office* - EA
• European Patent Office* - EP
• Finland* - FI
• France* - FR
• Georgia - GE
• German Democratic Republic* - DD
• Germany, Federal Republic* - DE
• Great Britain* - GB
• Greece* - GR
• Guatemala - GT
• Gulf Cooperative Council of Arab States - GC
• Hague Agreement - XH
• Honduras - HN
• Hong Kong* - HK
• Hungary* - HU
• Iceland - IS
• India - IN
• Indonesia - ID
• Ireland* - IE
• Israel* - IL
• Italy* - IT

SOURCES (continued)

• Japan - JP
• Kazakhstan - KZ
• Kenya - KE
• Korea, Republic - KR
• Latvia - LV
• Lithuania* - LT
• Luxembourg* - LU
• Malawi - MW
• Malaysia - MY
• Malta - MT
• Mexico - MX
• Moldova* - MD
• Monaco* - MC
• Mongolia - MN
• Morocco - MA
• Netherlands* - NL
• New Zealand* - NZ
• Nicaragua - NI
• Norway* - NO
• Panama - PA
• Peru* - PE
• Philippines* - PH
• Poland* - PL
• Portugal* - PT
• Romania* - RO
• Russian Federation* - RU
• San Marino - SM
• Serbia - RS
• Singapore - SG
• Slovak Republic* - SK
• Slovenia* - SI
• South Africa - ZA
• Spain* - ES
• Sweden* - SE
• Switzerland* - CH
• Taiwan* - TW
• Tajikistan - TJ
• Trinidad and Tobago - TT
• Turkey - TR
• Ukraine - UA
• Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)* - SU
• United Kingdom - GB
• United States of America* - US
• Uruguay - UY
• Uzbekistan - UZ
• Viet Nam, Socialist Republic - VN
• World Intellectual Property Organization (PCT)* - WO
• Yugoslavia - YU
• Zambia - ZM
• Zimbabwe - ZW

Dialog File Data [top]

Document Types Indexed [top]

• Patents

Geographic Coverage [top]

• International

Geographic Restrictions [top]

• None

Special Features [top]

• ERA Available
• KWIC and HILIGHT Available
• DIALOG Alert Available
• IDPAT Available
• MAP Available
• PreFormatted REPORTs Available

DialIndex/OneSearch Categories [top]

Contact [top]

Terms and Conditions [top]

For Dialog's Redistribution and Archive Policy, enter HELP ERA online.

SAMPLE RECORD (FORMAT 39) [top]

FAMILY TABLES RECORD (FORMAT 33)

BASIC INDEX [top]

¹ All chemical names are indexed as complete words, e.g., CHLOROBENZENE, and chemically significant word segments, e.g., CHLORO and BENZENE. Words such as CHLOROBENZENE can be retrieved by either segment. Use /FW to restrict retrieval to a full word, e.g., S BENZENE/FW. Search locants, which indicate the position of chemical groups, as words, e.g., S 2(W)3.

² The results of title and abstract searches can be viewed using the display tags TI or AB - these provide a display of all titles or all abstracts with the search terms highlighted. KWIC can also be used as a display format to see the search terms in context. Note that highlighting of search terms in these fields is not provided in any of the predefined formats.

ADDITIONAL INDEXES [top]

³ Use the limit /PB to restrict search terms to the information contained in the patent basic, i.e., the first or earliest patent in the family.

⁴ To search priority applications, use PR= for priority application numbers, or apply /PR to restrict Application Country (AC=), Application Number (AN=) and Application Date (AD=) to priority fields only.

⁵ Use the S operator to link patent and national application data for a specifc patent.

⁶ The Company Name field, CO= contains Patent Assignee (PA=) names and Reassignment (RA=) names for searching. Due to structural differences in the fields, RANK CO lists only patent assignee names. Reassignment names can also be searched with LS=.

⁷ The search report consists of Cited Patents, CT=, and Cited Literature References, RF=. The data searchable in these fields also includes the origin of the citation as a 3-letter code and the citation category as used by EPO and WIPO search reports. The origin of the citatiion code options include: SEA (originates from Search Report), APP (cited by Applicant), EXA (Revealed during examination phase), OPP (revealed during opposition phase), and 115 (Article 115 - observed by 3rd parties).

⁸ With the introduction of the Reformed International Patent Classification (IPCR/8) on January 1, 2006, the format of the IPC group has increased in length from 3 to 4 digits. For comprehensive retrieval, both forms of the classification codes should be searched, e.g., S IC=H04R-025/00 OR IC=H04R-0025/00 . Some records may contain IPCR/8 codes as well as earlier versions of IPC codes, indicating that an older patent has been reclassified.

⁹ Each IPCR/8 classification code is also assigned a series of attributes. These include classification level (A - Advanced, C - Core, S - Subclass), value (I - Inventive, N - Non-inventive), position (F - First, L - Later), status (B - Basic, R - Reclassified, V - Various, D - Deleted), version date, action date, source (H - Human, M - Machine, G - Generated), and assigning office. The classification attributes can be searched with the IA= prefix and can be linked to an IPCR/8 classification code (prefixes IC=, ICA=, ICC=) using the S operator and quotes around the classification code, e.g., S IA=F(S)IC="A61K-0031/198".

¹⁰ Legal Status Text, LS= is searchable in English only. Additional legal status notes may include assignee names and addresses, effective dates, reference countries, and reference patents.

¹¹ The list of countries for which legal status is provided is listed in the Sources section of the Bluesheet. Since not all records for that country will have legal status, use the /STATUS limit to restrict a search to records containing legal status data.

¹² MAPping of patent numbers using MAP PNPB captures just the basic patent in the family. MAP PN is used to capture all patents in a family for cross-file searching. The patent numbers for specific countries can also be MAPped, e.g. MAP PNUS.

¹³ The Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) was introduced in January 2013. It is structurally similar to the International Patent Classification (IPC), so CPC classes are searched the same way using the CP= prefix. CPC attributes are the same as the IPC attributes with the exception of the Value attribute (I - Inventive, A - Additional), and are searched with the CA= prefix. The (S) operator can be used to link the CPC class codes and their attributes.

¹⁴ The Record Type (RT=) term identifies major data fields that might be present in the record, in addition to bibliographic data. The RT= index contains the following entries: Abstract, Cited Refs and Legal Status. If a record contains no bibliographic data, it is assigned the value RT=NOBIBLIO.

¹⁵ The latest additions to the family record can be displayed using Alerting formats 15 or 16 . Display codes UB, UE, and UL can also be used to display the latest additions to the family. Not available for File 253.

¹⁶ The Japanese classification consists of two types: FI terms are based on the IPC version 4 classification and may contain additional alphanumeric extensions. F terms or part of a matrix classification system developed in Japan - the more general part of an F term is called a theme, and is further qualified by one or more viewpoint codes. For precise searching, use the combined F term; for broader searches, use just the theme (the portion of the code preceding the slash).

¹⁷ Beginning with week 200816, new or changed bibliographic data also includes EPO simple families. Patents in a simple family contain identical priorities, so a family record in File 345 may contain multiple simple families. Use EF= to locate specific Simple Family IDs. EF can be used to display all simple families and representative English abstracts, if any, present in Inpadoc family records. Simple family data displays in formats 33, 35, and 39. Note that simple family data may be incomplete or absent in records which have not been updated since week 200816.

LIMIT [top]

SORT [top]

RANK [top]

MAP [top]

USER-DEFINED FORMAT OPTIONS [top]

PREDEFINED FORMAT OPTIONS [top]

¹⁸ The Record Header in pre-defined formats contains the following data: Number of Patents, Number of Countries, Number of Legal Status entries, Patent Basic Country, Number, Kind and Date, Patent Basic Title(s), Assignee(s), Inventor(s),)and Record Type. The short form of the Record Header typically omits Assignee and Inventor.

¹⁹ Caution: All display formats in File 345 that display the patent family table are charged the full record price. This also applies to the user-defined format PI for displaying the patent table.

²⁰ Country codes can be used to display selected countries within a family, e.g., TYPE S1/US,CA/ALL to view only US and CA patents if present in the record set. The following rates (January 2013) are charged for displaying one or more country families (whether or not the country is contained in the family): $5.00 for one country, $10.00 for two countries, and full price for three or more countries.

DIRECT RECORD ACCESS [top]

Rates [top]

Rates For File: ONTAP® INPADOC/Family and Legal Status[253]
Cost per DialUnit:                 $0.00
Cost per minute:                   $0.00
Rank Elements                      $0.00

Format    Types   Prints
     1    $0.00    $0.00
     2    $0.00    $0.00
     3    $0.00    $0.00
     4    $0.00    $0.00
     5    $0.00    $0.00
     6    $0.00    $0.00
     7    $0.00    $0.00
     8    $0.00    $0.00
     9    $0.00    $0.00
KWIC95    $0.00       NA

REDIST/COPY Multiplier Table:

      Range      Multiplier
        1-2       1.00
       3-25       1.50
     26-100       3.00
    101-200       4.00
    201-500       6.00
   501-1000       8.00
 1001 or more    10.00

ARCHIVE Multiplier Table:

      Range      Multiplier
       1-25       1.50
     26-200       3.00
    201-500       6.00
   501-1000       8.00
 1001 or more    10.00

Rates For File: INPADOC/Family and Legal Status[345]
Cost per DialUnit:                 $6.67
Cost per minute:                   $1.68
Preformatted Report Elements       $0.00
Rank Elements                      $0.07
ALERT (default)                    $6.00
ALERT (Monthly)                *  $23.00
ALERT (Biweekly/twice a month) *  $12.25
ALERT (Weekly)                     $6.00
ALERT (Daily)                  *   $6.00
ALERT (Calendar weekly)        *   $6.00
ALERT (Intraday)               *   $6.00
* = custom scheduled Alerts only
ALERT Number of included prints        0

Format    Types   Prints
     1    $0.00    $0.00
     2    $0.70    $0.70
     3   $13.00   $13.00
     4   $13.00   $13.00
     5   $13.00   $13.00
     6    $0.70    $0.70
     7   $13.00   $13.00
     8    $0.00    $0.00
     9   $13.00   $13.00
    15    $2.50    $2.50
    16    $1.50    $1.50
    28    $0.00    $0.00
    29   $13.00   $13.00
    35   $13.00   $13.00
    39   $13.00   $13.00
    72    $0.70    $0.70
    73    $2.50    $2.50
KWIC95    $0.00       NA
KWIC96    $0.00       NA

REDIST/COPY Multiplier Table:

      Range      Multiplier
        1-2       1.00
       3-25       1.50
     26-100       3.00
    101-200       4.00
    201-500       6.00
   501-1000       8.00
 1001 or more    10.00

ARCHIVE Multiplier Table:

      Range      Multiplier
       1-25       1.50
     26-200       3.00
    201-500       6.00
   501-1000       8.00
 1001 or more    10.00
Note:
Selected country families can be displayed by specifying one or
more country codes, e.g., TYPE S1/WO,US/ALL

Country family charges per family record:
     1 country:    $ 4.00
     2 countries:  $ 8.00
     3 or more:    $11.00 or full record price
These charges apply even if the requested country families are
not present in the record.