Re: IPC codes, Use Orbit's GET RANK
Sandra Unger (ssunger@erenj.com)
Fri, 30 Aug 1996 12:48:23 -0400 (EDT)
Hello Unknown-Searcher,
Whenever I am faced with an unfamiliar area of technology, I will attempt to
find a small first pass set of patents, either from an existing report or a
simple text search or a Derwent code search or an IFI Claims search. This
small starting set of patents can then be used with Orbit's GET RANK IPC TOP
20 to see not only which IPC's are used, but which are **frequently** used
to capture the particular technology. I often find that the level of
consistency is pretty low, with no single IPC capturing all the interesting
documents that I have selected from my first-pass search. On Questel you
have even more capability to indicate how much of the IPC to use in grouping
hits together with the ..MEM command. This is a very powerful way to help
design your search. Sometimes the answer that you discover is that IPC's
will not help very much because the technology you are seeking is not well
defined by any IPC or any reasonable set of IPC's.
Sandra Unger
>
>Does anyone have any experiences or opinions they wish to share on practical
>methods of identifying relevant IPC codes for patent searching purposes? I
>am interested in hearing about what approaches are preferred, whether they
>be using print, online, internet, or CD-ROM-based guides.
>
>
--
===============================================================
Sandra Unger | Mail: ssunger@erenj.com | (908) 474-6605
===============================================================