DOCUMENTATION FOR THE ASSIGNEE_FULLFILE_15.TXT PATENT BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA EXTRACT FILE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ASSIGNEE_FULLFILE_DOC_15.TXT 6/30/2016 1:06PM Questions about the custom patent data extract files should be directed to: US Patent and Trademark Office Electronic Information Products Division Patent Technology Monitoring Team P.O. Box 1450 Alexandria, VA 22313-1450 tel : (571) 272-5600 e-mail : oeip@uspto.gov Patent Bibliographic Information - ASSIGNEE_FULLFILE_YY.TXT Full Assignee Data File ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes ----- This custom extract data file includes full Assignee information (the assigned patent owner) as displayed on the front page of issued U.S. patents. Full Assignee information is included for utility patents (i.e., "patents for inventions") issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) from 1/1/1975 to 12/31/2015. Full Assignee information is included for design, plant, and reissue patents, defensive publications, and statutory invention registrations issued by the USPTO from 1/1/1977 to 12/31/2015. The full assignee information contained in this custom data extract is limited to the data included in the assignee-specific bibliographic section of issued USPTO documents and does not include assignee information that may appear in other bibliographic or non-bibliographic sections of the patent documents. Please note that a data record for an issuing patent will appear in this data file only if the patent has at least one assignee listed in the assignee-specific bibliographic section of the patent. See the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Manual of Patent Examining Procedure for further information relating to patent assignees. File name : ASSIGNEE_FULLFILE_15.TXT Count of data records, CY 2015 : 5,269,372 (this count excludes the initial record in the file that displays field titles) File size : 311,748,205 bytes (about 312 megabytes) THE "ASSIGNEE_FULLFILE_YY.TXT" FULL ASSIGNEE DATA FILE HAS BEEN PLACED IN TAB-DELIMITED FORMAT TO LIMIT THE FILE TO A REASONABLE SIZE FOR PLACEMENT ON THIS CUSTOM DATA EXTRACT DVD-ROM. By contrast, most other bibiographic data files on this DVD-ROM are placed in fixed column width format. Trailing blank spaces in each record may be removed to reduce the size of the file. The general format of the data fields contained in the ASSIGNEE_FULLFILE_YY.TXT Full Assignee Data File is as follows: - Field 1 : Issued PATENT NUMBER that contains the assignee data (7-character alphanumeric field) - Field 2 : ASSIGNEE SEQUENCE NUMBER that identifies the order in which the assignee is listed on the issued patent (3-digit integer field) - Field 3 : ASSIGNEE NAME that identifies the listed owner of the patent at the time of patent grant; please refer to the additional discussion below (512-character alphanumeric field) - Field 4 : ASSIGNEE CITY that identifies the city location of the assignee at the time of patent grant; please refer to the additional discussion below (255-character alphanumeric field) - Field 5 : ASSIGNEE STATE-COUNTRY CODE that identifies the state or country location of the assignee at the time of patent grant; please refer to the additional discussion below (3-character alphanumeric field) - Field 6 : ASSIGNEE ASSIGNMENT CODE that identifies the ownership category of the assigned owner at the time of patent grant; please refer to the additional discussion below (2-character alphanumeric field) - Field 7 : ASSIGNEE NOTES field that contains miscellaneous supplemental information about the data record; please refer to the additional discussion below (255-character alphanumeric field) The ASSIGNEE_FULLFILE_YY.TXT file is sorted by ascending patent number (primary) and assignee sequence number (secondary) The first record of the ASSIGNEE_FULLFILE_YY.TXT file contains field titles for the data contained in the subsequent records. Each line of the data file is terminated with a carriage return and a line feed character (0D 0A in hexadecimal) after the last populated data field. Patent ownership category information reflects ownership at the time of patent grant and does not reflect subsequent changes in ownership. The first-named assignee data (assignee sequence number equal to 1) in the ASSIGNEE_FULLFILE_YY.TXT file usually correspond to the first-named assignee data listed in the data files within the directory, ASSIGNEE_HARMON_YY, elsewhere on this DVD. In some cases, however, the assignee names may be different due to edits and corrections made to harmonize the assignee name in the files within the ASSIGNEE_HARMON_YY directory. **************************************************************************** **************************************************************************** PLEASE NOTE THAT THE ASSIGNEE NAME AND CITY DATA CONTAINED IN THIS ASSIGNEE_FULLFILE_YY.TXT FILE ARE ESSENTIALLY UNEDITED. THE ASSIGNEE NAME AND ASSIGNEE CITY DATA IN THIS FILE SHOULD CORRESPOND TO THE NAMES AND CITIES THAT APPEAR IN THE BULK PATENT DATA TEXT FILES THAT ARE AVAILABLE ON THE USPTO WEB SITE. THE ASSIGNEE STATE-COUNTRY CODES HAVE BEEN STANDARDIZED TO CORRESPOND TO CURRENT CODES IN USE WITH THE TAF DATABASE. SOME OF THE CODES IN THE DATA RECORDS, PARTICULARLY THOSE CODES ASSOCIATED WITH REGIONS HAVING ONLY A FEW PATENTS, HAVE BEEN VERIFIED AND CORRECTED INDIVIDUALLY. IN A VERY LIMITED NUMBER OF CASES, THE ASSIGNMENT CODES HAVE BEEN VERIFIED AND CORRECTED FOR CONSISTENCY WITH THE ASSOCIATED ASSIGNEE DATA. FOR ADDITIONAL DETAIL INFORMATION, PLEASE SEE THE DISCUSSION BELOW, ASSOCIATED WITH EACH DATA FIELD **************************************************************************** **************************************************************************** ASSIGNEE NAME FIELD DISCUSSION ------------------------------ In general, the assignee name has not been cleaned except, where necessary, to convert characters into the 0-127, decimal ASCII set of characters. Therefore, foreign language characters, such as those with diacritics (e.g., umlauts), have been converted into approximate equivalent characters in the 0-127, decimal ASCII character set. The first-named assignee data (assignee sequence number equal to 1) in the ASSIGNEE_FULLFILE_YY.TXT file usually correspond to the first-named assignee data listed in the data files within the directory, ASSIGNEE_HARMON_YY, elsewhere on this DVD. In some cases, however, the assignee names may be different due to edits and corrections made to harmonize the assignee name in the files within the ASSIGNEE_HARMON_YY directory. ASSIGNEE CITY FIELD DISCUSSION ------------------------------ In general, the assignee city has not been cleaned except, where necessary, to convert characters into the 0-127, decimal ASCII set of characters. Therefore, foreign language characters, such as those with diacritics (e.g., umlauts), have been converted into approximate equivalent characters in the 0-127, decimal ASCII character set. ASSIGNEE STATE-COUNTRY CODE FIELD DISCUSSION -------------------------------------------- The assignee state-country code has been verified and cleaned to a limited degree. The assignee state-country code field has been standardized to correspond to current codes in use with the TAF database. For state and country values that have a small number of associated records,the records have been manually verified and corrected when necessary. Some assignees do not have a state or country code associated with them in the original bibliographic data files. In such cases, if additional data are available in the record to identify the state or country of the assignee, then the data in the ASSIGNEE_FULLFILE_YY.TXT have been changed to correspond to this state or country. If the state-country data are not available in the data record and no additional direct location information is available in the data record, then the state-country code has been changed to a "US UNSPECIFIED REGION" (US) or "UNKNOWN FOREIGN COUNTRY" (XPX) state-country category based on the information contained in the assignment code field and/or obtained through a manual verification of the patent and its associated data. The file, "ST_CNTRY_ASSIGNEE_FULLFILE_YY.TXT" contains state and country codes appearing in the ASSIGNEE_FULLFILE_YY.TXT data file and corresponding U.S. state and foreign country names. This file is identical to the "ST_CNTRY_YY.TXT" file included with several other data extracts on this DVD-ROM with the exception of the record for the "XPX" state-country code. In the "ST_CNTRY_ASGFULLFILE_YY.TXT" file, the XPX" code corresponds to "UNKNOWN FOREIGN COUNTRY" instead of "UNKNOWN COUNTRY". ASSIGNEE ASSIGNMENT CODE FIELD DISCUSSION ----------------------------------------- The assignee assignment code has been verified and cleaned but only to a limited degree. Generally, the assignment codes have been modified only in cases where the code did not correspond to a valid value. The assignment code corresponds to a category of patent ownership with the categories described as follows: Assignment code Ownership Category --------------- ------------------ 1 = unassigned 2 = assigned to a U.S. non-government organization 3 = assigned to a foreign non-government organization 4 = assigned to a U.S. individual 5 = assigned to a foreign individual 6 = assigned to the U.S. (Federal) Government 7 = assigned to a foreign government 8,9 = assigned to a U.S. non-Federal Government agency (8 and 9 may not appear) The above codes sometimes are preceded by a "1" which indicates partial ownership interest. Patent ownership category information reflects ownership at the time of patent grant and does not reflect subsequent changes in ownership. Patent ownership assignment is identified as "U.S." or "foreign" based on the listed location or residence of the assigned organization or entity. The "unassigned" ownership category (code 1) includes patents for which no assignment of ownership was made at the time of grant (i.e., ownership was retained by the inventor(s)). Since the ASSIGNEE_FULLFILE_YY.TXT file only contains records for which an assignment of ownership was made for a patent, NO RECORDS IN THE FILE SHOULD CONTAIN AN ASSIGNMENT CODE VALUE EQUAL TO 1. The "U.S. non-government organization" and "foreign non-government organization" ownership categories (codes 2 and 3) count predominantly corporate patents; however, patents assigned to other organizations such as small businesses, nonprofit organizations, universities, etc. are also included in these categories. The "U.S. individual" and "foreign individual" ownership categories (codes 4 and 5) include patents for which ownership was assigned to an individual (i.e., ownership was assigned to a person and not to an organization) at the time of grant. While the "U.S. (Federal) Government" ownership category (code 6) generally is limited to patents granted to the Federal Government, no such distinction is made for the "foreign government" ownership category (code 7). Therefore, while "foreign government" ownership patents should correspond to patents for which ownership was assigned to a foreign government, such foreign governments are not restricted to national (as compared to "local") governments. The "U.S. non-Federal Government agency" ownership category (codes 8 and 9) may be associated with some patent data records. However, these codes may not have been applied uniformly to all patents and should not be relied upon as the only means for identifying patents having "U.S. non-Federal Government agency" ownership. ASSIGNEE NOTES FIELD DISCUSSION ------------------------------- For patents granted through 2014, the assignee notes field includes the following detail data APPEARING IN ORDER, AS LISTED BELOW: - The state code corresponding to the assignee location, as contained in the original bibliographic data files; this value has been translated into the state-country code that appears in the ASSIGNEE_FULLFILE_YY.TXT file; the detail data field may be blank if there are no corresponding data in the original bibliographic data file; this value is followed by a semicolon; if no data are present, only a semicolon appears. PTMT does not have a translation table for these codes but the codes generally should correspond to routinely used state codes. - The country code corresponding to the assignee location, as contained in the bibliographic data files; this value has been translated into the state-country code that appears in the ASSIGNEE_FULLFILE_YY.TXT file; the detail data field may be blank if there are no corresponding data in the original bibliographic data file; this value is followed by a semicolon; if no data are present, only a semicolon appears. PTMT does not have a translation table for these codes but the codes generally should correspond to routinely used country codes. - The zip code field corresponding to the assignee, as contained in the bibliographic data files for some of the older patents; this value may include some additional information about the assignee but generally does not include a zip code; the detail data field may be blank if there are no corresponding data in the bibliographic data file; this value is followed by a semicolon; if no data are present, only a semicolon appears. The following 2 detail data fields sometimes appear in the NOTES field for patents granted through 2014 but the format is somewhat irregular (for now): - If itx data are available, those data follow the zip code field; itx data correspond to general supplementary assignee information that is provided for some of the older patents; when the itx data are not available (i.e., the data are blank), the itx field is skipped and NO SEMICOLON IS INSERTED TO INDICATE THAT THE FIELD HAS BEEN SKIPPED. - If the assignee has a blank assignment code in the original data files (and PTMT, therefore, has determined the assignment code manually), the capital letter "A" follows next in the NOTES field and is then followed by a semicolon; a semicolon also is inserted before the "A" character, if needed, to separate it from the previous detail data field within the NOTES field. The above data fields contained in the NOTES field are followed by: - a forward slash character (/); the intention is to allow more notes to be added after the slash character, if needed. For patents granted in 2015, the NOTES field identifies changes that have been made to values in the original data record ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - A list of the patent numbers that do not correspond to actual patents is supplied in the file, "WITHDRAWN_75_15_PN.TXT". Since these "withdrawn" patent numbers do not correspond to valid documents, they are excluded from the patent bibliographic data extract file. - A file "LASTPN_15.TXT" has been provided that displays the last patent number by year and patent document type. - Issued U.S. patents that are missing from the data file are listed in a separate file, "MISSING_15.TXT." In general, patent documents are missing from this data file because the corresponding data were omitted from the original electronic text files produced for the patents issued each week. Most of the issued U.S. patents missing from the custom extract data file were utility patents granted in 1975. - A file, "ST_CNTRY_ASSIGNEE_FULLFILE_15.TXT" contains state and country codes and corresponding U.S. state and foreign country names for geographic data fields appearing in this data extract. This file is identical to the "ST_CNTRY_15.TXT" file that appears with other data extracts on this DVD-ROM with the exception of the record for the "XPX" state-country code. In the "ST_CNTRY_ASGFULLFILE_15.TXT" file, the "XPX" code corresponds to "UNKNOWN FOREIGN COUNTRY" instead of "UNKNOWN COUNTRY". - ** NOTE ** Although efforts have been made to remove duplicate assignee entries, some duplicate entries may remain. - The data are sorted by ascending U.S. patent number and ascending assignee sequence number. - A small sample of the data contained in this custom extract data file is included in a separate file, "SAMPLE_ASSIGNEE_FULLFILE_15.TXT".