Content Notifications

April 2024: Thailand data delayed

Data processing for TH was recently on hold due to technical changes at the source. Processing has now resumed and we are working on delivering the maximum available data in our upcoming delivery. The provider expects the data to be fully caught up in June 2024.

April 2024: Five full text countries added; Unitary Patent Snapshots and flags loaded

In the past few weeks, we have added five countries to the CLAIMS Direct Premium Plus full text collection, bringing our total number of full text countries to 55. The new countries include:

• PH (Philippines)
• SA (Saudi Arabia)
• SG (Singapore)
• UA (Ukraine)
• ZA (South Africa)

We have also finished loading Snapshots to all Unitary Patent C0 records as well as the ep-up-requested flags, which indicate whether Unitary Patent protection has been requested for EP-B records.

February 2024: IFI Snapshots added to Unitary Patent C0 records

We will soon be loading IFI Snapshots for Unitary Patent (UP) C0 records. The C0 marker Snapshots will include the same attributes as those in EP granted records (kind code B*), except that the list of countries will only include those participating in the UP at the time of registration. The status of individual UP countries will all be the same, and the overall status of the UP will have the same attributes as the overall status of EP records, e.g., “Active”, “Expired-Fee Related”, “Expired-Lifetime”, “Revoked”, etc. A new status of “In-force UP" will be used for active UP-participating countries. See Case 4 in IFI Patent Status for examples.

January 2024: Five countries added to full text collection; Japanese back file extended

In the past few weeks, we have added five countries to the CLAIMS Direct full text collection including:

• HR (Croatia)
• GR (Greece)
• IT (Italy)
• NO (Norway)
• TR (Türkiye)

We have also extended the full text coverage of the JP back file to 1983. Details for these changes are available in our Data Coverage Table.

January 2024: Australian annotated data on hold

We have had issues with receiving the AU annotated data starting in September 2023. We are working to restore this data flow as soon as possible.

November 2023: British full-text delivery suspended

At the end of October, the UK IPO communicated that they have technical issues in their data deliveries. Last week we received confirmation that resolving the issue is going to take some time. The UK IPO is looking for alternative delivery mechanisms. In the meantime, IFI is also evaluating other options to get the full text of GB applications.

November 2023: DOCDB rekey of Austrian records

In July, DOCDB began a rekey of AT records that may affect CLAIMS Direct clients.

According to DOCDB, “AT T publications published before December 31,1994 will now have a T1 kind code, and the sequence number will have a leading ‘E’”. This means that CLAIMS Direct records with the old publication numbers will be deleted, and new records with the rekeyed publication numbers will be added. For example, AT-489945-T will be marked as deleted and AT-E489945-T1 will be added.

The DOCDB notice is available here: https://forums.epo.org/at-t-publication-rekey-visible-in-ops-and-other-tools-data-as-of-week-12946.

October 2023: Changes to Standardized Names

In order to improve consistency, we have simplified our rules for standardized naming of academic institutions. Previously, we created new names for different departments, campuses, and other divisions of the same parent institution. As it is now more common for applicants to file for patents under the name of the parent institution, we are consolidating our standardized names to reflect this practice, with the exception of institutions that are financially independent entities. We are currently reloading standardized names affected by this consolidation.

Two new categories are being added to the Names service: “Healthcare” for hospitals and healthcare centers, and “Nonprofit”. The “Academic” category will also soon be changing to “Education”.

September 2023: Standardized Names and Ultimate Owners added for Nikkei 225 companies

We have completed verification of the Standardized Names and Ultimate Owners for all companies in the Nikkei 225 which own patents.

August 2023: Unitary Patent data

In July, we began loading Unitary Patent (UP) data from DOCDB along with associated legal event data from INPADOC. Learn more about how we are handling UP data in our new blog on Unitary Patents and the Unified Patent Court.

August 2023: IFI CLAIMS Direct required update

The issuing patent authority has provided an updated PDF for the document below. Therefore, we have reloaded the PDF in our Attachment collection. Please ensure that you update this PDF within your Attachment cache as well. Bulk Attachment clients will receive the updated PDF automatically within your regularly scheduled attachments.

January 2023: Loading rich citations

We have begun loading rich citations data into CLAIMS Direct. We expect this process to increase the volume of data being loaded. However, this improvement will present non-patent citations in a structured format, improving access to this information.

CLAIMS Direct incorporated the schema change associated with rich citations in version 2.5, which can be seen here: https://docs.ificlaims.com/display/CDVDP/XML+DTD+and+Schemas.

Information about the enriched data that will be available through rich citations can be found here: https://docs.ificlaims.com/display/CDVDP/technical-data+citations.

January 2023: Errors in PCT numbering

WIPO has experienced a software error which caused the numbers for initial publications in the first three PCT publication batches of 2023 to be allocated following on from the numbers used in 2022. As a result, PCT numbers in the January 5, 12, and 19 publications run as follows: 

According to WIPO, numbering will resume from WO 2023/000001 on January 26 and publications in December will skip the range used in January.

December 2022: English translations added to many non-full text records

In December, we completed the machine translation to English of titles and abstracts which had only been provided by DOCDB in their original language. We did not previously provide translations of these records because they did not include full text. These translations will now be available to all subscription levels.

September 2022: Completed loading of Japanese Standardized Names

In September, we completed the data load of JP standardized names for Premium and Premium Plus subscriptions. Although the data load is complete, there are still some JP records which do not have an IFI Name, primarily due to difficulties with translations. We are working to fill in these gaps.

August 2022: Identification of Individuals in IFI Standardized Names

To better identify records in which the applicant or assignee is the inventor or any other person rather than an entity, we have begun flagging the IFI Standardized Name as “Individual”. For example:

<ifi-parties>
  <ifi-standardized-name>
    <addressbook>
      <name>Individual</name>
    </addressbook>
  </ifi-standardized-name>
</ifi-parties>

July 2022: Japanese PCT Publications

As part of the changes announced in February this year, JAPIO will no longer publish PCT national phase entries (Zaikohyo). As a result, there will no longer be a JPWOYYYYNNNNNNNA1 publication from the Japanese Patent Office.

May 2022: Japanese Standardized Names

The IFI Standardized Names for the JP collection have begun loading for Premium and Premium Plus subscriptions. We anticipate that backfile loading for these data will complete by September.

May 2022: Changes to Snapshots by subscription

We are deprecating the IFI Snapshots for GB, FR, DE, CA, and AU within the Basic subscription.

No action is required for Premium or Premium Plus subscribers. Basic subscribers with on-site servers will receive instructions on removing obsolete Snapshot data from their data warehouses.

February 2022: Delay in availability of Japanese full text

The Japanese patent office has changed the delivery formats of their data feeds. As a result, our processes must be adapted to these changes, causing a delay in the availability of the JP full text data. We plan to resume our normal update schedule shortly.

Update: As of Monday, February 22nd, new JP data is loading to CLAIMS Direct beginning with load-id 604336. Attachments associated with these records will be available shortly after the full text records are loaded.

January 2022: German backfile expanded

A backfile of roughly 3.8 million DE records has been added to CLAIMS Direct for publication years 1877 to 1986. As a result, 97% of the German backfile now has full text (Claims or Descriptions). Please be aware that because this is older expired data, it has some known quality issues that are also present in the DMPA website. As these records were created through OCR of older typewritten documents, the information can be limited at times and we have noticed issues such as missing bibliographic data/dates, parties not split out, incomplete full text, and formatting and OCR issues.

November 2021: Delay in availability of CA images

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) has informed us that patent images have not been updated since early 2020 due to a technical error that has required them to rebuild their process from the ground up. CIPO plans to solve this issue in the next few months. A notice will be shared with IFI clients as soon as the new files are available.

August 2021: IFI Snapshots fully covered for Chinese records

IFI Snapshots for CN documents are now fully covered in CLAIMS Direct and available to Premium+ subscribers. For more information about the enhanced data provided in our Snapshots, see IFI Snapshots Explained.

August 2021: Legal status of records related to US reissue patents

We have updated our IFI Snapshot Legal Status for records that are the basis for reissue applications to “Ceased” once the US reissue is granted and published (kind code E*). In addition, the expiry date for the reissue is now calculated based on the filing date of the original application. For more information about how we handle US reissues, see IFI Patent Status.

June 2021: Description of IFI patent status

IFI Snapshots provide calculated fields that use data from a variety of sources as well as IFI's proprietary algorithms to provide enhanced information about the current status of a patent document. In the documentation portal you can now find a description of values in the IFI patent status, an important element of the IFI Snapshots. See IFI Patent Status for details.

May 2021: Reload of records with incorrect party sequence numbers

We have discovered an issue in which a specific record in CLAIMS Direct may show the same party with different sequence numbers, depending on the data source. Because of the nature of the raw data, we cannot correct this issue.

However, we are correcting an issue related to records published pre-2012 in which sequence numbers did not maintain the order provided by the original data source.

To solve this, we are currently reloading the parties for 18.6 million records which have incorrect sequence information.

February 2021: Ability to distinguish "national" and "regional" states in WIPO applications

In WO applications, there are two types of designated states: national (INID code 81) and regional (INID code 84). Some states may be included in both types.

Previously, we removed duplicated states, making it impossible to know when a specific state was explicitly designated in national states. We have now corrected this problem.

In January we processed over 4 million publications affected by this issue, with the last of the records reloaded in load-id 509747.

December 2020: Added German PDF files

The IFI attachments service now includes full document PDF files for DE records published since 2004.

October 2020: Expanding full text coverage

In the past few weeks, we have added seven countries to the CLAIMS Direct full text collection including:

• IE (Ireland)
• IL (Israel)
• MX (Mexico)
• NZ (New Zealand)
• PL (Poland)
• SE (Sweden)
• TH (Thailand)

We are still processing English translations for those countries and working with our data providers to solve some known issues, which we expect to resolve very soon.

July 2020: Google translations and new Chinese data load completed

In July, we completed two major projects which have greatly improved the quality and accuracy of our data. English translations from Google Translate are now available for full text records as described in our data coverage table. Chinese data from our new and improved source is also now available for records dating back to 1985. For more information about the improvements resulting from these new data sources, see Translations and Chinese Data Improvements.

March 2020: IFI’s new translations provide nearly 100% coverage for the past 10 years

We have completed loading translations from our new sources back to publication year 2010. This has increased the percentage of full text records from the past ten years which contain English translations to nearly 100%. Out of 44,457,285 records filed between 2010 and 2019 containing claims in any language, the number of records which do not currently have claims in English is only 38, bringing IFI’s coverage to 99.999915%.

March 2020: Indian PDF Coverage

In the past few weeks, we have processed PDF files associated with IN records published since 2018.

February 2020: Availability of Google translations and improved Chinese data

We are currently in the process of adding English translations from Google Translate to our entire full text backfile with the exception of China, which is receiving improved English translations from a separate source. This may cause query results to differ over time as old translations are replaced.

The replacement involves an aggressive load schedule but will result in higher-quality text and faster availability of translations. For more information about the improvements the new translations will bring, see Translations.

The new translations are already present in our frontfile and are being added to the backfile one year at a time, working backward from the present. For specific progress, check the Translation Reload Status or contact support@ificlaims.com.

In addition to the full text fields, the new Chinese data source also affects names, keywords, legal status, and other fields, leading to greater accuracy in searches directed to a number of different fields. For more information, see Chinese Data Improvements.

January 2020: IFI is changing the rules for applicant/assignee name harmonization

In June 2019, IFI began implementing a new rule in which the ifi-standardized-name does not change when the patentee organization changes its name. New names will now be available as ifi-standardized-name-current in the ifi-integrated-content container.

For example: In 2017, Horsehead Corporation officially changed its name to American Zinc Recycling Corp.
EP-1799929-A2 has Horsehead Corp. as the applicant delivered by the EPO. For this document in CLAIMS Direct we find:

During the process of implementing the new rules, some records lost the relationship to the new names. For example, EP-1799929-A2 currently shows "Horsehead Corp" in ifi-standardized-name as well as ifi-standardized-name-current.

Switching to the new rules will be an ongoing process. Starting next week, we will be reloading those ifi-integrated-content containers affected by the issue described above.

It is important to mention that IFI does not consider a change in the legal form of an entity to be a name change (Inc/LLC, SL/SA, AG/GmbH, etc.). In these cases, the ifi-standardized-name will change in accordance with the old rules.

Note that in the Ultimate Owner service (currently in beta), new and former names will be available as child names of the same ultimate parent.

August 2019: CPCI (CPC-International) replaces CPC and CPCNO

The EPO has announced that CPC-International will be rolled out starting with the next DOCDB data delivery. From week 2019/36 onward all CPC classifications will have classification-scheme=“CPCI”. Classification-schemes “CPC” and “CPCNO” will be discontinued from that week onward. In CLAIMS Direct we have added the CPCI value to the schema attribute in classification-cpc (see the Release Notes for more information).

Main features related to this change:

• CPCI is maintained at the family level. When there has been a change to the CPCI picture for a given family, every member in the simple patent family (i.e., all members with the same family ID) will be updated.
• In classification scheme=CPCI, classification symbols will be allocated by more than one authority. When different authorities have allocated the same classification symbol, the CPCI picture for one publication will contain duplicate classification symbols.
• Duplicate classification symbols for one publication will be made unique by a two-letter authority-code. To this purpose, the element <generating-office> is populated by DOCDB for every authority allocating CPCI classifications, and also for the EPO and the USPTO. In CLAIMS Direct XML, the authority-code can be found in positions 41-42 in the CPC.

April 2019: Change in number formats for Czechoslovakia/Czechia 

In the next few days some CS and CZ records will change the format of their patent numbers following DOCDB recommendations. Some of the changes will include moving the year to the end for CZ publication numbers dating prior to 2000 and suppressing embedded zeroes for CZ publication numbers, applications, and priority numbers dating from 2000 onward. The following table illustrates the changes.

More information will be added to the release notes as we incorporate these changes.

December 2018: Rekey of IN apps

Please be aware that we rekeyed some IN records in order to solve a duplicate issue. You will find more information in the Release Notes.

December 2018:  IFI CLAIMS Direct required update

The issuing patent authority has requested the removal of particular content from the official record in the document(s) below. Therefore, we have reloaded the document(s) in our databases. Please ensure that you update them within your applications as well.

September 2018: Coverage of EP A4 documents

EP kind code A4 documents cover the supplementary search reports as issued by the EPO following PCT applications entering the EP regional phase. Until now these documents were not fully integrated into the normal EPO publication flow of A and B publications.

Now A4 data is available in CLAIMS Direct both in XML format as well as PDF. See the Release Notes for more detailed information.

July 2018: Expanding PDF coverage

In the last few weeks, we have added full document PDFs to the CA, KR, RU, and WO collections. See the Release Notes for more detailed information.

July 2018: Timeliness of Japanese data improved

At IFI we care about data quality and know how important it is for our clients to have access to the latest data as quickly as possible. Today we are happy to announce that we have improved the average timeliness of JP data availability. This data will now be made available to our clients 2-3 days after the publication date, a vast improvement over the previous delivery schedule of 2-3 weeks.

June 2018: Change in number formatting for Austrian applications and priorities

In the context of improving consistency in numbering formats, the EPO has advised that the DOCDB XML delivery of week 29/2018 will include a change of number format in applications and priorities with authority-code "AT" and kind-code "U".

Applications and priorities with a filing-date from 2000 onward will be re-keyed from the old format n(nnnn)yy to the new format n(nnnn)CCyy.

The correction will have an impact on the following CLAIMS Direct records:
•  11,599 applications with authority-code "AT" – triggered by the correction of the application-numbers
•  20,886 applications for a variety of authority-codes – triggered by the correction of the priority-numbers