Database News for September and October 2010


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Changes in CA/CAplus kind codes and formats for Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese patents increase consistency, save time
Precision of EMBASE searching enhanced with new chemical name field
MEDLINE Cited References provide additional relevant records with no additional searching
Removal of Pre-IPC 8 data fields streamlines displays in USPATFULL, USPAT2, and USPATOLD

CA/CAplus kind code changes for Chinese patents increase consistency, save time

Chinese utility models with a publication date of October 6, 2010 or later will now use kind code U in the CA/CAplus family of databases. The kind codes for Chinese utility patents with publication dates of April 7, 2010 through October 5, 2010 will be updated from Y to U. These changes impact both basic patents and equivalents, will make crossover searching easier, and will save you time by ensuring kind-code consistency among CA/CAplus and other STN databases.

New format for Korean patent application numbers in CA/CAplus increases consistency, saves time

Numerous Korean patent application numbers (/AP) and priority application numbers (/PRN) in the CA/CAplus family of databases formerly consisted of six digits. A new seven-digit format has been adopted to ensure conformity among the CA/CAplus family and other important STN databases.

The new format contains a zero (0) inserted immediately following the 7, which is always the first of the seven characters in the serial number (see example below). This change applies to 90,000 Korean application numbers and to approximately 3,000 priority application numbers in patents from 1999 to the present.

The new format will make crossover searching easier and will save you time by ensuring that patent number crossovers among STN patent databases are comprehensive.

Format for Korean Patent Application Number and Priority Application Number

Previous format	KR YYYY-7nnnnn (e.g., KR 2000-710051)
New format	KR YYYY-70nnnnn(e.g., KR 2000-7010051)

Increase your retrieval consistency with new formats for Taiwanese application numbers in CA/CAplus

The formats of Taiwanese patent application numbers (/AP) and priority application numbers (/PRN) have changed in the CA/CAplus databases to be consistent with other STN databases. These changes ensure that you will receive a complete set of records when you crossover patent application numbers among several STN databases.

The new formats will be applied to new Taiwanese applications and CA/CAplus backfile records, and differ from previous formats by the deletion of the first two characters (that corresponded to the Taiwanese year) immediately following the dash:

Taiwanese Patent Application Number Format

Previous format	TW 2005-94114837
New format	TW 2005-114837

Precision of EMBASE searching enhanced with new chemical name field

A new Chemical Name Search field (/CNS) in EMBASE has been introduced to increase retrieval precision for chemical names. This new /CNS field operates across the entire EMBASE database to retrieve names indexed in the Chemical Name (/CN) and the CAS Registry Number(/RN) fields.

The /CNS field has SLART and proximity capabilities, and its chemical names are parsed on spaces and on non-alphabetic characters. For example, the chemical name 9-(3-Deoxy--D-ribofuranosyl)adenine is parsed as

9
3
Deoxy
D
ribofuranosyl
adenine

Dimethyl sulfone appears in the /RN field as dimethyl sulfone and can be retrieved in the /CNS field by searching the parsed entities

dimethyl
sulfone

Glyco flex iii appears in the /CN field and can be retrieved in the /CNS field by searching

glyco
flex
iii

MEDLINE Cited References provide additional relevant records with no additional searching

Now there is an easy way to retrieve additional information for a record of interest in the MEDLINE database on STN. Cited References are now available in MEDLINE, and you can use them to access MEDLINE records related to a record of interest. To date, more than one million MEDLINE records have been enhanced with Cited References information.

A number of new search fields have been introduced to quickly connect you to the Cited References information. New custom display options are also available for Cited References information, such as the RE field, which displays an assortment of useful data elements (see below), and RAN.MEDLINE, which enables you to display the MEDLINE record for cited references of interest.

New Search Fields

New Cited Fields

Sample Record with Cited References

Removal of Pre-IPC 8 data fields streamlines displays in USPATFULL, USPAT2, and USPATOLD

USPATFULL, USPAT2, and USPATOLD displays have been streamlined through the removal of Pre-IPC 8 fields (ICM, ICS, ICA, and ICI) from the following pre-defined display formats:

STD / STD.EX / ISTD
ALL / IALL / DALL
MAX / MAX.EX / IMAX / IMAX.EX / DMAX
IND
SCAN

Note: You can still use these Pre-IPC 8 fields when searching and/or custom-displaying information from Pre-IPC 8 patents (those published in 2005 and earlier).

Similar changes have been implemented recently in CA/CAplus, MARPAT, and CASREACT. For additional information on the Pre-IPC 8 reform, visit

http://www.cas.org/support/stngen/doc/ipcreform/index.html.

Updated 11/10/2010 9:05:42 AM