Report:Derwent World Patents Index/Special Indexing/Derwent Assignee Codes
From Intellogist
| Report | Patent Coverage Map | Ratings | Comments |
| This search system report was created by the Intellogist Team and is available for viewing only. If you'd like to share your knowledge on Intellogist, please visit the Best Practices, Glossary, or Community Reports pages. Registered users may be notified of any substantial changes to this report by placing a "watch" on the Revisions page, which is the last page listed in the table of contents. To learn more about using the Intellogist "watchlist," see the Watchlist Help page. | |
  |
|
Derwent Assignee Codes
The wide range of company name variations that can exist in any patent database is a documented problem. Between misspellings, transliterations from other languages, and abbreviations for common words (such as "Co." for "Company" or "Ltd" for "Limited), many different versions of a company name can be recorded in a patent database, and this can hamper accurate keyword retrieval. Derwent indexers have attempted to address this problem in DWPI through the use of standardized four letter codes to represent patenting entities. Both the assignee name and its standardized code are entered into the file for each record, to permit retrieval by either method. Only the top 21,000 worldwide patenting entities are represented by these patent assignee codes in DWPI: patents from smaller entities are not indexed by assignee code.
One aspect of this coding system that can be confusing to users is that non-standardized patent assignees in the DWPI database are also tracked through the use of codes. These non-standard codes are five letters, with a dash between the fourth and fifth characters, such as "ABDC-N." Although the format of these codes are similar to the four-letter standard codes, they cannot be used to accurately retrieve related patents from the same entity.[1]
Sources
- ↑ Global Patent Sources: An Overview of International Patents. 6th edition. London: Thomson Scientific, 2007. Pages 177-208. http://scientific.thomson.com/media/scpdf/global_patent_sources.pdf. Accessed June 13, 2008.
