Derwent Patent Databases

Country codes in brackets are obsolete ICIREPAT codes. Country codes in parentheses were used by Derwent PubHcations Ltd. prior to the adoption of International Standards Organization (ISO) country codes. The obsolete codes remain on printed records, but have been replaced by current codes in on-line DATABASES. Eor Japanese patents, Derwent replaced the second character of the country code with the first digit of the pubHcation year prior to 1992 this variant of the company code is stiU found in on-line databases and printed pubHcations. 

Derwent Information Ltd. Derwent Information Ltd., previously known as Derwent PubHcations Ltd., changed its name in the 1990s to reflect more accurately the fact that its products go far beyond traditional pubHcations. Derwent provides a wide spectmm of information products and services, many of them relating to patents. Derwent also produces important databases (qv) of nonpatent information from the pharmaceutical and agncultural chemical Hterature. These products and services encompass alerting tools for current awareness, systems for retrospective search and retneval, and means for document deHvery and archiving. 

Recently, a series of chemical substances called functional dyes have attracted considerable attention. Because such dyes have long conjugated 7c-electron systems, and in many cases, have intramolecular charge transfer stractures, functional dyes are expected to show interesting optical and electronic properties. Among functional dyes, phthalocyanine colorants have been extensively investigated because of their excellent physical, chemical, and coloristic properties as mentioned above [2j. For example, over 1000 related US patents published from 1990 onward are retrievable from the World Patent Index database of Derwent,... 

The World Patent Index of Derwent Information Ltd. is a broad collection of international value-added patent documents from 40 patent-issuing authorities. The bibliographic database contains 11.6 million patent records with 5.5 million images (October, 2002) and grows by 1.5 million patent documents each year. The classified and indexed documents (since 1963) are sometimes provided wdth additional abstracts or significant titles. 

U.S. Patents. This file, produced by Derwent, Inc., covers U.S. patents from 1971 to the present. The database iacludes all bibliographic and front page information and the text of all claims. (Prom 1971 to 1974 the claims from many patents were not available from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) source tapes, and therefore are not iacluded.) The complete cl aim text can be searched from 1971 but can be ptinted only from 1982. Tides and patentee names are present ia their original form, aeither expanded nor standardized. There is no enhanced iadexiag. Examiner citations are directly searchable, and USPTO classification is updated when the tapes are received from the Patent Office. 

Besides the worldwide WPI database, Derwent provides on the ORBIT system the USPatents database, a bibhographic file of patent front page and cl aim information for U.S. patents since 1971. Derwent also produces a biotechnology database, GENESEQ, that indexes sequence stmetures of proteins or nucleic acids disclosed specifically or genetically in patents. This database is searchable with special sequence software on the InteUiGenetics system, and is a new addition to STN s database catalog. 

A new initiative introduced by Derwent during 1995 is the Patents Citation Index, an on-line database of patent citations that includes both examiners citations and patentees citations to prior art from patent specifications. When given a known invention of interest, as represented by a patent family, the database can identify any patent against which it has been cited, as well as eadier patents cited by any member of that family. Limited citation... 

EPIDOS issues printed and microfiche compilations of its data in addition, its database can be searched on its own computer or on several on-line host systems. In general, EPIDOS provides the most complete patent family information of any service, although Derwent tends to include more information on inteUectual (nonconvention) famUies, whereas the Erench Patent Office s EDOC file on the Questel system includes information on... 

With the advent of on-line searching in the 1970s, the Derwent file was one of the first to go on-line. It had subject retrieval capabiUty by the manual and punch code systems, tide terms, IPC, and broad subject groupings called Derwent classes, whose primary function had been to allocate patents to appropriate segments of the Derwent system. By 1981, abstracts were added to the database, after which abstracts for the entire back-file were added. 

The Chinese patent file with its abstracts can be used to supplement WPI, which at this writing has only tides for Chinese patents. JAPIO provides abstracts based ia particular oa pateat claims, and can help to clarify uncertainties with Japanese abstracts from Derwent and/or CA. PATOLIS, ia Japanese, is a unique source of Japanese legal status information (37). EPIDOS staff carry out PATOLIS searches on request for those with sufficient need to search the PATOLIS database, software is available to enable those who cannot read Japanese to extract key data. 

Other Databases with Patent Information. The APIPAT database has been discussed, as have the unique capabihties of the merged WPI—APIPAT file on ORBIT. Many other databases contain substantial amounts of patent information, notable among them are Derwent s biotechnology Abstracts the TULSA database (petroleum exploration and production), several specialized pharmaceutical files, PAPERCHEM, and METADEX. A very complete listing of databases containing patent information circa 1990 has been prepared (38). 

ITPAIS, the Image Technology Patent Information System was developed between 1975—1985 by Eastman Kodak Co., Agfa-Gevaert (Antwerp/Leverkusen), and Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd., and encompasses selected patents and Hterature references related principally to the chemical aspects of image technology. Search terms used for this table were the same as in the previous edition, and the Derwent patent database was used for the search data presented here. 

Derwent World Patents Index. Derwent World Patents Index (DWPI) [76] is a comprehensive database of patent documents published worldwide. It covers over 10 million separate inventions from more than 20 million basic and equivalent patent documents. DWPI is commercially available on the following online services DIALOG, Questel, Orbit, and STN. Pharmaceuticals from 1963, agricultural and veterinary medicine from 1965, plastics and polymers from 1966, all chemistry from 1970, electronics, electrical and mechanical engineering from 1974, and comprehensive coverage of all... 

Derwent Direct, 18 226 Derwent Information Ltd., 18 211, 216—227 Derwent patent database, 18 222-223 Derwent s FARMDOC-AGDOC-... 

MDDR is a database derived principally from the patent literature, journals, and meetings. It contains the structures of approximately 130000 compounds of which approximately 1000 are launched drugs. WDI is a Derwent database of approximately 73 000 marketed drugs and development compounds, drawn from journals, scientific meetings, and approved name lists. CMC is a list of about 8400 compounds taken from the Drug Compendium in Pergamon s Comprehensive Medicinal Chemistry [94] and also from the United States Approved Names list. 

WPIM (World Patents Index Markush), produced by Derwent Publications, Ltd., contains the specific and generic structure records for compounds in the patents included in Derwent Sections B (Farmdoc), C (Agdoc), and E (Chemdoc) since 1987. Sources include patents from 29 industrialized countries as well as European and PCT patents and also items from Research Disclosure and International Technology Disclosures. The compound numbers of relevant references found in WPIM can be searched in Derwent s WPI database to retrieve the corresponding bibliographic information. 

Preparation of queries for Derwent s on-line database of the patent literature. PCs. 

Whereas most patent sequences are available in the public domain for use in research and for commercial exdoitation, there is a substantial body that are the subject of patent protection. It is often useful when conducting searches of sequence databases to be aware of the sequences that are patented because this may imply certain restrictions on the use to which these sequences can be put in a commercial context. The commercial repository is maintained by Derwent (Thomson Scientific), which generates the Geneseq database of patented sequences. This is a useful collectionbe-cause it contains a broad historical collection as well as more recent examples, although the terms for a commercial license to use the database may be off-putting to some potential users. There are also patent sections of Gen-Bank/EMBL DNA databases too. but these are of limited value because they contain only more recent sequence data. 

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