Jose,
Obtaining equivalents and a patent family is essentially impossible for
patents prior to the mid 1960's. That is because prior this time, the patent
offices did not indicate priority data on the front page of patents. Even
though the Paris convention has been in effect since 1888 (I think) with the
one year to file elsewhere rule, it wasn't until around 1965 that patent
offices starting putting foreign serial numbers on patents enabling family
linking. For example, if you look at a 1950's vintage US patent with a
foreign priority, it will say something like "This patent claims German
priority", and it may have a German filing date as well. What they never had
was a German application number, which they put on patent nowadays.
Therefore, it is impossible to systematically link patents from different
countries.
The only workaround that I am aware of is Chemical Abstracts, if the patent
has chemical subject matter. In the time frame in question, CA used to pick
up US and GB patents fairly systematically, and they had a policy of
indexing other countries if the patents were filed by nationals of those
countries. Therefore, a German patent with German inventors might be in CA,
and if they filed and received grants in GB and the US, those patents would
also be in CA. You have to do the linking manually, based on common
inventors and subject matter.
Andy Berks
Merck & Co.
> ----------
> From: Jose Diaz[SMTP:jdiaz22@ssmp.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2000 10:19 AM
> To: piug-l@derwent.tecc.co.uk
> Subject: Re: US 2111740 (issued March 22, 1938).
>
> Dear PIUG members:
>
> I have tried to obtain the patent family for the above US patent
> (specifically, I would like to know if there is an EP counterpart) but to
> no avail.
>
> DWPI and INPADOC have limited coverage (the databases only go back to 1963
> and 1968, respectively);
>
> IFI CLAIMS' CLAIMS/U.S. Patents database (File 340 on Dialog) - I
> considered searching for an EP priority application number but the
> coverage is from 1950 and on;
>
> Esp@cenet provided no equivalents;
>
> I have also tried Chemical Abstract's CAOLD database (1907 - 1966),
> hosted on STN, but came up with a '0' hit.
>
> Any suggestions?
>
> Regards,
>
> José Diaz
> Reference Law Librarian
> SSMP
> jdiaz22@ssmp.com
>
>
>
>
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