Report:DialogClassic and Classic Web/Data Coverage/Patent Coverage/Full Text Coverage

Full Text Coverage

Full text patent databases accessible through Dialog include:

File 652 - U.S. Patents Fulltext (1971-1975)

This information is sourced from the Dialog Bluesheet for File 652.

This file contains the full text of United States patents granted between 1971 and 1975. Each record in the database contains all “front page” information (meaning the data that is presented on the front page of the patent document when in printed form). This data includes title, author(s), assignee(s), related applications, classification data, cited references, and abstract. The complete text of the original patent typically consists of a description of drawings (although not the drawings themselves), the background/field of invention, a brief summary of the invention, the detailed description/embodiment of the invention, examples, and all claims. This closed file contains over 303,000 records.

This file also contains post-issuance legal status information supplied by IFI/Plenum Data Corporation. This data applies to patents that have been reassigned, reexamined, granted an extension beyond the normal 17/20-year period, expired prior to the normal 17/20-year period, or reinstated after late payment of the maintenance fee.

File 654 - U.S. Patents Fulltext (1976+)

This information is sourced from the Dialog Bluesheet for File 654.

File 654 contains the complete text of all granted patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) since 1976. Published applications (PG-Pubs) issued since March 15, 2001 are also included. This file is updated on a weekly basis.

Along with file 652, above, this file also contains post-issuance legal status information supplied by IFI CLAIMS® Patent Services.

File 348 - European Patents Fulltext

This information is sourced from the Dialog Bluesheet for File 348.

European Patents Fulltext covers all European patent applications and granted European patents published since the opening of the European Patent Office (EPO) in 1978, and bibliographic records for PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) applications transferred to the EPO.

Each record consists of: • Bibliographic, administrative, and legal status data from the European Patent Bulletin (1978 forward) • Complete specification(s) and claims of published, unexamined applications ("A" documents) from 1986 forward (full text in the original language of publication) • Complete specification(s) and claims of examined, granted patents ("B" documents), if available, from 1991 forward (full text in English, German, and French)

Record titles are available in all three languages. English abstracts are added to German and French documents within several weeks of their addition to the database. Claims of "B" documents are searchable in all three official languages. The approximate breakdown of languages for the full patent specification (text) is 55-60% English, 30- 35% German, and 10-15% French. File 348 is updated on a weekly basis.

File 349 - WIPO/PCT Patents Fulltext

This information is sourced from the Dialog Bluesheet for File 349.

The WIPO/PCT Patents Fulltext database on Dialog covers the full text of PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) published applications issued under the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) since 1978. WIPO bibliographic data is available online within 1-2 days of publication. Full text data provided by Thomson Scientific is searchable online approximately 5-7 days after publication of the document. Original WIPO patent documents are converted into electronic form through an optical scanning (OCR) process. Users should keep in mind that although the OCR process is a reliable method of converting documents into electronic form, occasionally characters may be converted incorrectly. The WIPO/PCT Patents Fulltext database is produced by Thomson Scientific and WIPO.

Records in File 349 contain the searchable text of the complete document, including the specification and claims; titles and abstracts in French and English; patent applicant/assignees and inventors; and patent and priority application data. The majority of fulltext documents are in English. Documents are also available in French, German and Spanish. As with most PCT full text files, this file does not contain any PCT applications filed in languages that use non-Latin characters.

File 324 - German Patents Fulltext

This information is sourced from the Dialog Bluesheet for File 324.

File 324, the German Patents Fulltext database is produced by Thomson Reuters from XML data provided by the German Patent Office. The content of this file for the years 1967-2007 was produced by Univentio using an optical scanning (OCR) process to convert printed German patents into electronic form. Machine-generated English translations of titles, abstracts, specifications, and claims are available for the years 1967-2007 but are no longer provided as of January 2008. The database is updated weekly with new patents available online within a couple working days after publication by the German Patent Office.

From January 2008, the German Patents Fulltext database covers all German patents and published applications as well as German publications based on EP or WO patents. Coverage for 1967-2007 is limited and includes German published applications (kind A), granted patents (kinds B and C) and utility models (kind U). Bibliographic data is provided for all patents from 1967 forward. Beginning in 1980, the abstract, the text of the specification, and the claims are also provided.

File 371 - French Patents

This information is sourced from the Dialog Bluesheet for File 371.

File 371 covers all French patent applications and granted French patents published by the French patent office, the Institut National de la Propriété Industrielle (INPI). All patents published in France since 1966 as well as all special pharmaceutical patents (Brevets Spéciaux Médicaments) published between 1961 and 1978 are included in this file.

Records include bibliographic, administrative and legal status data for each document. Abstracts and descriptors are also available since 1978. All records are in French, but English descriptors are available from 1987 forward. Several display formats provide field labels in English to make the records easier to read. Images of patent drawings are included in records published from 1978 forward.

In addition, a significant amount of legal status data is provided by INPI and included in this file. This data includes announcements in the Bulletin Officiel de La Propriété Industrielle (BOPI) as well as unpublished inscriptions in the official register. Since some of the legal status information is unique to the French Patents database, it is collected in a table containing the date of the action, BOPI issue number and a description of the status. The table can be displayed in French or in translated English.

File 340 - CLAIMS/U.S. Patents

This information is sourced from the Dialog Bluesheet for File 340. For additional information, see the Intellogist Community Report for IFI CLAIMS®.

Dialog file 340, the CLAIMS®/U.S. PATENTS database is produced by IFI CLAIMS® Patent Services. The database provides access to over 4.6 million United States patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) since 1950. Published pre-grant applications (available from March 2001) and issued patents published for the same application number are combined in a single merged record.

From 1971 forward, the CLAIMS records include all information found on the front page of a U.S. patent document plus exemplary and non-exemplary claims. Records from before 1971 contain basic bibliographic data and the exemplary claims only. Provisional application data is also included. Business-method patent indexing is available from 2001 forward. Published pre-grant publications often do not include assignees, so a Probable Assignee field is generated by IFI from various sources such as reassignment data.

Also of note, in 2006, the new International Patent Classification Reform (version 8) was applied to patents in the database from 1950 forward, providing users greater functionality when it comes to IPC searching.

The CLAIMS®/UNITERM (File 341) and CLAIMS® /COMPREHENSIVE (File 942) databases contain the same patent records, but also include in-depth controlled indexing for chemical and chemically-significant patents from 1950 forward. File 341 is publicly available but is limited to 12 hours per year without a subscription. File 942 can be accessed only by subscribers.

A comprehensive list of the data files accessible on Dialog is available here.

Editor's Note:

Notably, Dialog does not contain any databases with US full-text coverage before 1971. Although not provided in digital form by the USPTO, this data has been scanned using optical character recognition and is available through a handful of sources including [Google Patent Search], MicroPatent, and LexisNexis TotalPatent. For more detailed full-text coverage data, please see the data coverage summary table.