CLAIMS Direct Web Services (CDWS) are REST services which serve as the main access points to CLAIMS Direct. Together they provide a comprehensive API that allows for querying, XML data retrieval, reporting and otherwise interacting with the data-store, index, and attachment repositories, as well as specialized services for family and citation lookups.
The services can be grouped into the following general categories:
The Search services expose general full text searching across the entire patent collection using the Solr Query Syntax. All of Apache Solr search, relevance, sort, facet, and group functionality are available through this service. Additionally, although currently experimental, Solr Clusters utilizing the Clustering Component are available for input to 3rd party tools, such as Carrot2.
The Text service encapsulates extraction of complete XML documents from the CLAIMS Direct XML data warehouse. Documents can be requested singly or in bulk.
Reporting is a service that further expands the capacity of the text service. It allows extraction of data as CSV or XML. CSV columns can be chosen ad-hoc from a complete list of available fields. Reports can be generated from document lists, searches, pre-created CLAIMS Direct data warehouse tables (not available for shared-service customers), or entire load-ids.
Through the Attachments service, you can list or retrieve attachments associated with a particular CDWS XML document, including embedded images as well as external referenced text files.
Citation services provide methods for retrieving backward or forward citations for an individual ucid or group of ucids.
The Legal Status service exposes legal events from the USPTO PAIR data and the EPO's INPADOC. This service is currently BETA.
Family services provide methods for retrieving simple or extended family data.
The Custom Text Web service returns an application number-centric, merged representation of one or more CLAIMS Direct documents.
The System service provides details about internal load status, load sources, and data that is currently processing through the primary data warehouse.
The Version service provides a simple way to display the current CDWS version.
The PITR (Patent Intelligence & Technology Report) service offers users the ability to create pivot tables of data using the Solr JSON facet API.
The Update service is used to synchronize on-site installations of CLAIMS Direct.
This bulk download service provides access to complete copies of recently published attachments packaged in a convenient archive.
The Class service is used to retrieve IPC and CPC textual descriptions. This service is currently BETA.
The Names service allows users to retrieve CLAIMS Direct IFI names and name variations as well as ultimate corporate owners and subsidiaries.
The Litigation service exposes global litigation data provided by MaxVal. Case details, outcomes, party data and more are available from multiple courts. It is available as a separate subscription.
The IP Profiles service provides a succinct summary of the current patent assets held by corporate entities and their subsidiaries.
IFI CLAIMS is introducing shared-service quotas. Click on the link above for details.