IPC code searching

Adams Stephen SR (Stephen.S.R.Adams@gbjha.zeneca.com)
Mon, 2 Sep 1996 16:40:34 +0100

I agree with some of the earlier correspondents in saying that a good method
is to try to identify good hits and work from there, but would raise two
cautions on other comments ;
1.
The IPC is NOT an expressive classification at the sub-group level i.e. more
and/or higher digits does not necessarily imply that a term comes "below" a
term with fewer and/or lower digits. Consequently, you should not rely upon
standard truncation when searching online
e.g. A01N-025/06 is a sub-heading of A01N-025/04 which is a sub-heading of
A01N-025/02, but A01N-025/08 is a totally different concept. Likewise,
A01N-025/10 is a sub-head of A01N-025/08, so you couldn't just truncate on
A01N-025/0? ? and expect to get reasonable answers.
The best advice would be to identify a few good hits and then ensure that
you examine the authority files (paper or CD) to get familiar with the
hierarchy structure.

2.
The concordance between US classes and IPC is, in my experience, highly
unreliable. The two systems try to classify in quite different ways, and
you will find that sometimes there is 1 US class corresponding to a range of
IPCs, sometimes it works the other way - depends upon the area of
technology. The US has in its favour a more rapid updating system. I have
in the past used CLAIMS or similar to identify relevant US cases using US
classes, then crossed the results to Derwent and looked at the IPC applied
to other family members - assuming that there are any. This can be quite
helpful.

I agree with the person who spoke about IPC:CLASS - we have the provisional
Windows edition v.2.1 and I like it. I always tend to use the German
"Stichwort" catchword index first, as it is much better at subject coverage.
Searching the actual IPC definitions, at least in the chemical area, is a
waste of time.

Hope this helps
Stephen Adams
Zeneca Agrochemicals
stephen.s.r.adams@gbjha.zeneca.com