IFI CLAIMS has been managing standardized company name variations for decades, allowing you to map patent publications to the correct original and current assignees. Our proprietary name management process cleans various types of entity names to address issues of misspelling, name changes, and other merger and acquisition activity. The result is the most reliable company name mapping available for IP analytics. Our Names Service takes this process even further, providing the Ultimate Owner for any IFI Name and allowing you to easily capture the full portfolio of patent assets owned by a company and its subsidiaries.
To make the best use of our IFI Names and Ultimate Owners, it is important to understand how we manage the data. This blog explains some of the rules we use to standardize names and assign Ultimate Owners.
We standardize:
We do not standardize:
We follow three main steps in our cleaning process: normalization, standardization, and harmonization.
The first step is to normalize the data or put it into a homogenized format. This includes:
Next, different name variations are grouped under one official IFI Name. This is an extremely important step in the process as some of the variations we receive would make the record very difficult to find otherwise. For example, as of January 2022, we have 2,260 name variations for BASF SE, including:
Finally, harmonization involves matching the standardized IFI Name to the most current entity name, accounting for name changes. In the Names API, when an entity changes its name, the old name is added as a child with the parent_relationship
flagged as "F" (former name). For example, in May 2020 United Technologies Corp changed its name to Raytheon Technologies. So for the Ultimate Owner (UO) Raytheon Technologies Corp, the Names API includes the child name, United Technologies Corp (F), among others.
The system then recalculates the ifi_name_current
for all associated records. For example, Orig3n Inc changed its name to Seaport Diagnostics Inc in April 2021. As of December 2021, there were no published reassignments of any of their patents. However, the new name was available as the ifi-standardized-name-current
in CLAIMS Direct:
<ifi-standardized-name country="US" number="866109"> <name>Orig3n Inc</name> </ifi-standardized-name> <ifi-standardized-name-current country="US" number="866108"> <name>Seaport Diagnostics Inc</name> </ifi-standardized-name-current> |
To deal with names in different languages, we follow a common practice used by many patent offices and information providers.
For names in languages using Latin characters, we do not translate the names to English. Rather, we keep the original company names in their original language. For example:
For names in languages using non-Latin characters such as Russian and Chinese, we transliterate the names to Latin characters and use the name provided by the applicant if the company has a known English name. For example:
Name in Chinese: 清锋(北京)科技有限公司
Transliteration: Qingfeng Beijing Technology Co Ltd
IFI Name: Luxcreo Beijing Inc
For Japanese names, we try to find the official English name, which is not always a translation of the Japanese name. For example, according to the company website of Daido Tokushuko Kabushiki Kaisha, the company "name shall be expressed in English as Daido Steel Co., Ltd."
In a transliterated Japanese name, Kabushiki Kaisha is abbreviated as KK. If the name is translated, then the legal form is represented as “Co Ltd.”
Romanized names are added as variations of the official English name.
For purposes of disambiguation, we add the country to the end of the name if the same entity name exists in different countries:
If multiple companies with the same entity name exist in different states of the same country and the entities are owned by different parent companies, we add the state to the end of the name:
IFI's Ultimate Owners provide comprehensive coverage of the patent holdings of major public companies such as those listed on the following:
In general, our rules for determining Ultimate Owners are as follows:
As an exception, we do create Ultimate Owners that are investment companies if they own patents or if they are in the S&P lists. For example, Huntington Bancshares Inc. is considered an Ultimate Owner because many of its child companies own patents, including:
Joint ventures join two or more different entities into a new entity for a specific objective in a specific country. Joint ventures are considered to be Ultimate Owners because none of the participants own more than 50% of the venture.
A holding company is an umbrella company that owns one or several other companies. They are often set up to distribute liabilities amongst different companies. A holding company may be listed as an Ultimate Owner if it owns enough stock to have a controlling interest and if it produces a consolidated financial statement. For example, Berkshire Hathaway is considered an Ultimate Owner because it produces a consolidated financial statement.
Dual-Listed Companies (DLC) form a corporate structure in which two legal entities function as a single operating business but retain separate stock exchange listings, usually in different countries. In CLAIMS Direct, the DLC is the Ultimate Owner.
For example, Rio Tinto is a leading international mining group headquartered in the UK, combining Rio Tinto PLC, a London and New York Stock Exchange listed company, and Rio Tinto Limited, which is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. The two companies are joined in a DLC structure as a single economic entity called the Rio Tinto Group.
Rio Tinto PLC, GB - LSE
Rio Tinto Ltd, AU - ASX
Ultimate Owner: Rio Tinto Group, GB
IFI uses this category for educational institutions, no matter the funding type. This includes schools, colleges, and universities, all of which may be Ultimate Owners.
As it is now common for educational applicants to file for patents under the name of their parent institution, we consolidate the various departments, campuses, and other divisions under the name of the parent institution, with the exception of institutions that are financially independent entities.
This may include:
A university system is a group of institutions having a collective legal status and generally recognized by a state government, a board of education, or other relevant organization as a collective organization. IFI creates an Ultimate Owner for university systems.
For example, for the Ultimate Owner, State University System of Florida, child names include, among others:
This category includes state-owned companies as well as government departments and agencies. Some examples include:
In CLAIMS Direct, ticker symbols are available for all listed entities. You can use the Names service to retrieve the IFI name associated with a ticker symbol, then use that name to find all patent records associated with that entity in the IFI Snapshots.
We cover the most popular lists such as the S&P 100, S&P 500, Russell 1000, and more, and we add new Ultimate Owners from the Nasdaq, NYSE, and other sources daily. We have also begun to cover markets outside of the US such as the Australian Securities Exchange and the Japan Exchange Group. New sources are added on a continuous basis.
Tickers are associated with the standard Market Identifier Code (MIC), specifically the operating MIC, which identifies an entity that operates an exchange, trading platform, etc. Some examples include:
Market Name | MIC | Operating MIC |
---|---|---|
CBOE BZX U.S. EQUITIES EXCHANGE | BATS | XCBO |
SHANGHAI STOCK EXCHANGE | XSSC | XSHG |
SHENZHEN STOCK EXCHANGE | XSEC | XSHE |
Tickers that contain numbers are not defined as numeric. Leading zeros are not removed.
Entity Name | MIC | Ticker |
---|---|---|
Petrochina Co Ltd | XSHG | 601857 |
XHKG | 00857 |
If a ticker ends in a letter indicating the equities class, the letter is removed.
Entity Name | Ticker in External Sources | Ticker in IFI Products |
---|---|---|
Corus Entertainment Inc | CJR.B CJR/B CJR B CJRB | CJRB |
Tickers that contain other symbols are stored as they are.
Entity Name | Ticker in External Sources | Ticker in IFI Products |
---|---|---|
Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd | M&M | M&M |
Tickers for stocks listed as American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) are provided if available.
Entity Name | MIC | Ticker |
---|---|---|
Novo Nordisk AB | XCSE | NOVOB |
XNYS | NVO |