Here is the reply from Richard Hill to my question on the subject:
"Thank you for your question about our coverage of Chinese C-documents.
You
have brought to light a situation which I personally was not aware of,
and
which was not made clear in our messages earlier this year concerning
the
CN-A delays.
"In fact, we covered CN-C patents up to the time when our source of CN
patents dried up in 1995, and the last coverage was in week 9549. When
we
finally sorted out the problems with our new source, our coverage was
restricted to the A-documents.
"I understand that we have now found a new source of data for the
C-documents, and we hope to resume coverage early in 1998. Most likely,
we
will start with current patents and fill in the backlog backwards, but
this
has not been finally decided yet.
"As soon as we have firm details of the resumption date and the catch-up
schedule, we will issue a message about the CN C-documents to the PIUG
and
also put it on the website."
Just to make life interesting, Inpadoc does not cover Chinese C
documents but does cover the B documents. Their most recent patents in
this group date from early April 1997 -- still a considerable delay.
Nancy Lambert
nela@chevron.com