Guide to STN Patent Databases – Basic Version - Paton - TU Ilmenau

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Guide to STN Patent Databases
In PATDPA there are varying text substances for the various types of documents, and moreover with a varying time
coverage (cf. the database description German patents have at least an abstract from 1981, European publications
only from 1998, German utility models have the main claim from week 39/1999). In text searches, this may have an
effect on how many documents of the various types will be retrieved. In particular to cover utility models it is
important to search by classification (IPC), see the introductory remarks on Subject Searching .
All text fields were subject to an automatic analysis of word stems up to 1998, the result of which is searchable (PST
advantage of easier formulation of the text search. PASSAT terms are no longer available in new documents.
Left and right hand truncation can be used in the Basic Index.
At the start of the TI field it is shown from which document of the family the text of the title was taken (e.g. (A1)
Title is taken from the A1 publication). The abstract is always taken from the first publication even if somthing
different, e.g. (B4), is specified.
In the Multilingual databases (EPFULL, PCTFULL, PCTGEN, RDISCLOSURE, INPADOCDB, INPAFAMDB) the key
words, apart from English, should also be entered in other languages.
In the full text databases on the one hand the complete text of the publication, on the other hand the individual
text components (Title, Abstract, Main Claim, All Claims) can be searched.
In the Basic Index single words from all text fields (Title, Abstract, All Claims and more text fields) are searchable.
(Right and left hand truncation are available.) This usually yields a high number of results compared to text searches
in other patent databases, yet the result often contains documents of little relevance. In order to limit the number of
hits and at the same time improve the relevance of the documents retrieved:
Proximity operators should be used and
The FOCUS command should be used to sort the result.
It is advisable not to use AND but the (S) operator or the (P) operator (in USPATFULL/USPAT2, USPATOLD and
IFIPAT) to link two or more terms.
Because of the extensive text components, where specific expressions and quite likely even company names,
trademark names, etc., can be found, full text databases are particularly useful to search for opposition material and
for monitoring searches.
In USPATFULL, USPAT2 and USPATOLD Full text Browsing is possible, i.e. a document can be browsed by
screens and searches by additional aspects can be done.
In EPFULL German and French terms should be used in addition to English. To display fields in a particular
language display formats are available that prefer a certain language, e.g. by DISPLAY CLMDE German
claims are preferred.
In AUPATFULL, CANPATFULL, FRFULL, GBFULL and PCTFULL all text components are generated by Optical
Character Recognition (OCR) software, i.e., recognition errors may occur and text components may be
incomplete. These databases are multilingual: PCTFULL English, German, French, Spanish; FRFULL
French, English.
PATDPAFULL
ublished by the German Patent and Trademark Office.
There are no documents from European or PCT applications with Germany as designated state in this
database. It is therefore recommended to also consult the EPFULL and PCTFULL databases if a
comprehensive search for documents relevant for Germany is wanted.
IFIPAT should be seen as a full text database with respect to text searches, even if only the title, abstract and all
claims are available.