> ----------
> From: paris@epo.e-mail.com
> Sent: Wednesday, January 20, 1999 10:57 AM
> To: Turner, Elyse
> Subject: Patent Families in INPADOC
>
>
> Dear Ms. Turner,
> Yes indee family linking works as described in your example. Besides the
> priority numbers application numbers are used for establishing the links.
> The latter measure is necessary as somtimes in follow up publications
> (divisions, continuations, additions) there is no reference to the
> priorities given in the basic document.
>
> Priority is one of the must-categories in INPADOC PFS, so coverage starts
> with the availability of priority information. The coverage varies from
> country to country.
>
> As for the "technical" families which were found by analysis of inventor
> names and applicant names, the "priority" link is established manually
> by allocation a fictitious priority number to the family members. This
> is done only for those cases investigated by our search team.
>
> Kind regards,
> Peter Paris
>
> *** Forwarding note from N1353911--IBMMAIL 20/01/99 14:05 ***
> Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 09:06:20 -0500
> From: "Turner, Elyse" <elyse_turner@merck.com>
> Subject: Patent Families in INPADOC
> To: "'paris@epo.e-mail.com'" <paris@epo.e-mail.com>
>
> Mr. Paris,
> I read the "General description" for PFS in INPADOC, but I still have
> several
> questions about what constitutes a patent family in INPADOC. This
> description says that "Additional family links are established by
> analysing
> inventor and applicant names". It does not explain how links are made in
> the first place. How are links determined? Based solely on priority?
> Based on priority and application number? Based also on application
> number?
> The description goes on to say that "Documents are linked to a family even
> when they have only one priority in common". What happens with multiple
> links particularly when you have document A with priority 123, document B
> with priorities 123 and 456, and document C with priority 456? Would A
> and
> C be in the same family? How far does this go out iteratively? And what
> about the older data, particularly before 1972, some of which do not have
> a
> priority? Are patent families in INPADOC machine generated or were some
> manually generated?
> Thank you.
> Elyse Turner
>
> Elyse D. Robinson Turner
> Merck & Co., Inc.
> elyse_turner@merck.com
> (732) 594-6418
>
>
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