6.1.1 CPC Codes Included

The complete table of classes contained in LifeQuest is available upon request to customers and potential customers.

The most common classes in LifeQuest are:

• A61 which concerns medical science
• C07D and C07K which are about heterocyclic compounds and peptides
• C12 which is about biochemistry, genetic engineering and wine/beer

Please send an email to [email protected] to request the full list of CPC codes in LifeQuest.

6.1.2 Document Counts by Authority upon Initial Release (will be updated)

6.1.3 Publication Languages and Their Codes

At present, LifeQuest only provides a searchable index in English. Many foreign language documents are included in LifeQuest – these are machine translated into the English language before they are made searchable. We will expose native language queries for many common languages in future releases.

You can query on the original publication language via the Publication Language (la) field. The codes to use are shown below.

6.3.1 Kind Letters (KL)

We introduce the concept of kind letter (KL). A kind letter is defined as just the part of the kind code that contains letters.

Kind Letters (KL) Corresponding to Sample Kind Codes

Kind CodeCorresponding Kind Letter

Now, we define a PN-KL combination as the latest numeric version within a KL. So, for instance, if a patent had an A1, A2, A3, and a B1 document, we define two PN-KL combinations, the A3 document which represents the A kind letter, and the B1 document which represents the B kind letter. In such cases, we attempt to augment the KL document with any missing information from earlier documents. So, if the A3 document was missing its claims section, we would augment it with the A2 information. See the augmentation process, below.

6.3.2 What is Available vs What is Searchable

LifeQuest will store every PN-KC combination available to it and make these all viewable in the Full Patent Viewer. However, it will only make the PN-KL documents searchable in the search engine. That is, when LifeQuest documents are searched, hits are organized by kind letter where a A document represents the latest A1, A2 ,A4 ,… document. This simple trick allows us to present documents from authorities that try to keep the same PN for applications and grants (EPO for instance) in the same way as authorities that do not (USPTO for instance).

Available in Full Patent ViewerWhat is Searched in Search PageExplanationXXXXThe only document available.

6.3.3 Augmentation of Document Information

But what is a patent document? When our providers send us documents, we get the latest version of a document. For instance, there could be several updates to a US1234A4 document. Moreover some documents are partial, for instance with no description. This happens sometimes when a document goes from US1234A1 to US1234A4 for instance, the description might not be included, because it is the same in the A4 and A1. We have an augmentation process to make documents complete. Let us say we have an US1234A7 document with missing claims and description. We will look in the document with a previous kind code first, i.e. US1234A4. If the claims are in the A4 we will copy the A4 claims to the A7 document. But since US1234A4 does not have a description either, we will look in US1234A1. We will copy the A1 description to the A4 and A9 documents.

This augmentation process is done within Kind Letters, in other words, an A4 document will not be augmented by a section in a B1 document and vice versa.

6.3.4 Advantages and Disadvantages of the PNKL Approach

The major advantages of the kind letter organization:

• All authorities are viewed the same way, that they change the PN when granted or do not change it makes no difference since the kind letter changes (from A to B mostly). The USPTO and the EPO are handled identically.
• Some Chinese documents that have the same PN and different KL are in fact totally unrelated documents. This happened when both indexing schemas used by SIPO for grants and applications crossed. They now appear and are handled differently since they have different kind letters.

A few disadvantages:

• You will access applications and grants of the same document which might look redundant. Switch the search from document mode to family mode to alleviate this.
• Some small authorities using 2 letter codes will not follow the same schema and all kind codes will be shown (this is mostly for Thailand).

6.4.1 Simple Family Definition

LifeQuest currently supports two different family definitions, the Simple Family and the Extended Family. The Simple Family is akin to the SIMPLE FAMILY as described in the WIPO Handbook on Industrial Property Information and Documentation. That is, a Simple Patent Family relating to the same invention, each member of which has for the basis of its “priority right” exactly the same originating application or applications.

Simple Family Example

Patent family members          Originating (priority) applications

6.4.2 Extended Family Definition

“Extended patent family” means a patent family relating to one or more inventions, each member of which has for the basis of its “priority right” at least one originating application in common with at least one other member of the family. For example, note how the US4670093A  document draws these two simple families together.

Extended Family Example

Patent family members                   Originating (priority) applications