> - A JP equivalent may be available for a JP PCT - it would appear in a Derwent patent family with the W kind code. The JP can be machine translated.
I need to interject some background here. (Note: Any
corrections to the following will be greatly appreciated.)
Many patent users see a JP application number in Derwent
and assume that there is a Japanese equivalent. This is
not the case. When a Japanese application is sent the way
of WIPO, it is pulled out of the Japanese system. Only
the original application number remains. This application
number is indexed on CAS but not in PATOLIS (where it
can be printed online but not searched online).
This application reenters the JPO system only after
the applicant furnishes a copy and translation of the
international application and pays the national fee. The
applicant has 30 months from the priority date in which
to do this.
When the application enters the JPO national phase,
it gets a new application number. If it was originally
a Japanese application, it is eventually published on
CDROM under the WO number (slightly reformatted). If it was originally
a non-Japanese application, it is given a new publication
number.
This results in three series of publication (A) numbers,
for example,
JP 11-XXXXXX - Japanese application (non-PCT)
JP 11-5XXXXX - Japanese pubication of PCT _translation_
JP 11-8XXXXX - Japanese publication of PCT _copy_
Since the publications of the PCT copies depends on
when the applicants get around to entering the national
phase (if they do at all) and when the JPO gets around
to publishing them on the CDROM, they are scattered
all over the CDs. On average, they appear on the CDROMs
13 months after the PCT publication date.
In order to provide machine translations of PCT copies
as a reliable service, we need to do some nontrivial (at
least for me) database programming, which we have
not yet done.
-- Alan Engel ISTA, Inc. ConvertedKokai(tm) machine translations of Japanese patents http://www.intlscience.com