What I've seen in my brief forays into the file is that a "worldwide" search
brings up the patent numbers of all the patents that match the search
criteria. Some have titles, others don't. When you click on a patent
number without a title, you get a bibliographic record from an equivalent
patent. I haven't seen anything listed under "equivalents" on any of the
records I've looked at, not even the ones where I clicked on a Greek patent
number and got an English language EP patent in the display.
It would be nice if someone at the EPO would tell us what they actually have
in the files, wouldn't it?
Edlyn Simmons
-----Original Message-----
From: Andy Berks [mailto:BERKSA@war.wyeth.com]
Sent: Friday, February 19, 1999 4:07 PM
To: piug-l@derwent.tecc.co.uk
Subject: Re: Full Text on Espacenet
I examined the full text available on esp@cenet, in the
"worldwide" database. First of all, according to the help file, there are 63
countries (my count) with bibliographic info, of which about eight have
front page data (abstracts) and seven have full text. It does not appear to
be possible to search the full text. The only searching is a simple template
with several fields and there is no option for full text.
The data display is tricky. When requesting a display, you
are greeted with an "invalid request" message, but in the window showing
this message, there are some buttons along the top. For a recent US patent,
they have buttons for Biblio data, Description, Claims, 1st page image, and
Drawing.
-The biblio data has the abstract and it also has an
equivalents field that purports to show patent family data, but as Stephen
Adams pointed out, it doesn't seem to be working right and known equivalents
are not listed.
-The description and claims buttons are full text displays.
-The first page is a pdf image of the first page. Contrary
to comments by Richard Kurt and others, I do not think they have the pdf
images of additional pages.
-Most patents I use don't have a drawing, so I don't know
what that button does.
This site is still rough around the edges, and not quite
ready for prime time. I might consider giving this database to some of my
end users if the problems are fixed.
Andy Berks
Wyeth Ayerst Research
Pearl River NY
>>> <Sara_K_Davis@sbphrd.com> 2/18/99 5:24:20 PM >>>
I tried viewing the full text of an EPO application on
Espacenet and had
all sorts of problems. Adobe Acrobat, which I have in the
proper version
and which works with other sites, did not come up. The
whole screen
blinked wildly, and when I tried to send a comment via the
form provided,
the submitting action produced some sort of Java error
message which was
not meaningful, but I gather my message was not sent.
Has anyone else been able to view full text documents from
this site?
Sara Davis, SmithKline Beecham-US