Swami:
My recollection of Derwent's IPC policy in the 1980s was that once a
particular IPC Group was represented in the record for a family, subsequent
family members with different (and perhaps more helpful) Sub-Groups of that
same Group did not generate additional IPC entries. So only the first
Sub-Group to arrive was searchable. I hope I've explained that clearly -
maybe someone at Derwent will offer a definitive account of WPI treatment of
IPCs?
Regards
Peter Steele
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Buntrock [mailto:buntrock2@earthlink.net]
Sent: 06 January 2000 23:56
To: Edlyn Simmons-ES; piug-l@derwent.tecc.co.uk
Cc: subramaniyan_narayanaswami@sandwich.pfizer.com
Subject: Re: International Patent Classifications
Edlyn Simmons wrote:
> Derwent has always indexed all of the IPC codes they find in any family
member
> (there may have been a limit to the amount of data in the field at one
time).
>
In the early days of Derwent, the users discovered that there was a
limit to the number of IPCs that were added to the file from
subsequently appearing family members. I don't recall what the limit
was (up to 6?), but we eventually got them to change there policy.
In addition, Derwent was aware of the "scattershot" approach to
assignment of IPCs and their long-standing remedy was to create Manual
Codes -- MCs.
Caveat emptor: use any method you can to get retrieval; truncated IPCs,
MCs, text, whatever.
-- Bob Buntrock
Buntrock Associates, Inc.
PS: I also agree with the validity of the comment in another response,
"Why should the inventors be concerned with correct IPC coding?"
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