The PDG has for some years been trying - without much success - to persuade
both WIPO and the major national offices to collate this sort of information
centrally. I would still use INPADOC to retrieve what there is, then we
have to approach national agents to follow up individual cases.
As I see it, the fundamental problem is the volume of information which
would need to be collated. With published PCT applications running in
excess of 40,000 per year, and a sizeable proportion (maybe half ?)
designating all states, we are looking at the need to track approximately
40000 x 90 x 0.5 = 1,800,000 additional applications entering national
patent offices. Even if many of the designated states are dropped, I
suspect that information specialists are going to want to see null entries
as well, so the problem doesn't reduce. An extra 1.5-2m records a year is
considerably more than the annual load of new basics on WPI. I don't see
any commercial database producer rushing to take on that job - especially
considering the fact that it's difficult enough to get many of the national
offices which are part of the PCT system to supply basic bibliographic
information about their national publications !
I believe that this is a problem which has to be tackled at source i.e.
WIPO. Whilst they may not maintain records on national phase entry, they
should at least be able to release Ch.I / Ch. II data which would be a
start.
Any volunteers to camp outside Geneva ? <g>
Stephen Adams
Zeneca Agrochemicals
stephen.s.r.adams@gbjha.zeneca.com