We are now in receipt of the first documents which published on
29th May 1996. The key change is that there is no longer a year
prefix to the patent number. The documents will become an
incremental series starting 2,500,001.
Derwent will be using the JP country code followed by the number
- no more 'Western Year'. The status of the documents are B2.
One other change on the specification is that the publication
date field has changed to (45) from (44) - this reflects the
change to 'post-grant' opposition.
We will let you know when these will reappear both online and in
print products as soon as we can.
Regards
Martin Rees