To : Carolyn de Luna
To answer your second question first - since you do not supply your company
name, I can't tell what field of technology your employees might be
searching in, but at this part of Zeneca we have not released any full text
patent files for end users. This is mainly because we have a large
programme of end user searching in the CAS Registry file, and most of their
queries are structure-based which are not amenable to text searching. I am
not a fan of full text files for patent searching myself, except in certain
very well-defined areas of technology or search types, and I do not feel
that releasing full text files to end users would be a good use of our
searching budget.
On the question of file wrappers, (assuming that you are in the US) you
could contact Derwent Inc. - the GB end of the operation have expanded their
activities to include file wrappers (not just GB), and I would guess that
the US office may be offering the same service. Specifically for EP cases,
the EPO Register file includes a fax number with each record which is the
contact point for file wrapper information relating to that case - this is
normally a Munich number I believe. For "difficult" countries, we have the
advantage as a large company of having attorney contacts on the ground, and
find that this is often the most convenient method of obtaining national
wrappers.
Stephen Adams
Zeneca Agrochemicals
stephen.s.r.adams@gbjha.zeneca.com
----------