Contents

Database Description

The CLAIMS^®/U.S. PATENTS database (File 340) produced by the IFI CLAIMS^® Patent Services, provides access to over 4.6 million United States patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) since 1950. This is the largest collection of U.S. patent references available in an online database. Published pre-grant applications(available from March 2001) and issued patents published for the same application number are combined in a single merged record

From 1971 forward, the CLAIMS records include all information found on the front page of a U.S. patent document plus exemplary and non-exemplary claims. Earlier records contain basic bibliographic data and the exemplary claims only. Provisional application data is also included. Business-method patent indexing is available from 2001 forward. Published pre-grant publications often do not include assignees, so a Probable Assignee field is generated by IFI from various sources such as reassignment data. In 2006, the new International Patent Classification Reform (version 8) was applied to patents from 1950 forward, providing users greater flexibility in IPC searching.

The CLAIMS^®/UNITERM (File 341) and CLAIMS^® /COMPREHENSIVE (File 942) databases contain the same patent records, but also include in-depth controlled indexing for chemical and chemically-significant patents from 1950 forward. File 341 is publicly available but is limited to 12 hours per year without a subscription. File 942 can be accessed only by subscribers.

Related CLAIMS files: CLAIMS^®/CURRENT PATENT LEGAL STATUS (CLS) (File 123) covers patent post-issue actions such as reassignments, extensions, reexaminations, and disclaimers. CLAIMS^® /REFERENCE (File 124) contains an online version of the USPTO Manual of Classification and the general term indexing thesaurus used with Files 341 and 942. CLAIMS^®/CITATION (Files 220, 221, and 222) provides examiner cited and citing patent numbers. CLAIMS^® /COMPOUND REGISTRY (File 242) is a dictionary of IFI's chemical compound vocabulary.

Subject Coverage

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Terms and Conditions

Subscribers to UNITERM files have unlimited use of CLAIMS/ UNITERM file (341). Non-subscribers are limited to a maximum of 12 hours of use per calendar year.

Data may not be duplicated in hard copy or machine-readable form without written authorization from IFI CLAIMS Patent Services, except that limited reproduction of printed output up to 25 copies is permitted for distribution within the subscriber organization only. Under no circumstances may copies under the provision be offered for resale or sale.