DOCUMENTATION FOR THE "CLAIMS_15.TXT" PATENT BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA EXTRACT FILE
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CLMS_DOC_15.TXT
6/30/2016 6:29PM


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



U.S. Patents, Number of Claims, Number of Drawing Figures, and Number of
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Submitted Drawing Sheets
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Notes
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This data file generally includes US patent claims data for utility, design, plant, and reissue
patents, defensive publications, and statutory invention registrations issued by the US
Patent and Trademark Office.

U.S. patent claims data are included for utility patents issued from 1/1/1975 to 12/31/2015.
U.S. patent claims data are included for design, plant, and reissue patents, defensive
publications, and statutory invention registrations issued from 1/1/1977 to 12/31/2015.

Data pertaining to published patent application documents are not included in this data file.


- The file format is as follows:

    - Columns 1-7  : U.S. Patent document (i.e., issued patent to which the other information
                     in the record applies) (character field)

    - Columns 9-12 : Number of Claims (if information for this field is missing,
                      the field is marked with a space (" ")) (integer field)
    - Columns 14-17: Number of Drawing Figures (if information for this field is missing,
                      the field is marked with a space (" ")) (integer field)
    - Columns 19-22: Number of Submitted Drawing Sheets (if information for this field is missing,
                      the field is marked with a space (" ")) (integer field)


   Trailing blank spaces in each record may be removed to reduce the size of the file.

    5,882,078 records, CY 2015 (filename: "CLAIMS_15.TXT", 137,062,962  bytes (about 137 megabytes))


- The data are sorted by patent document number.

- Patents that are missing "number of claims" data in the file are listed in a 
  separate file, "MISSING_15.TXT". In general, the "number of claims" is missing 
  for a patent because corresponding data were omitted from the original electronic 
  text files produced for the patents issued each week. Most of the "number of claims" data
  missing from this data file are for utility patents granted in 1975.

- 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" numbers are not patents,
  they are excluded from the patent bibliographic data extract files.

- A file "LASTPN_15.TXT" has been provided that displays the last patent number by year of grant and
  patent document type.

- A small sample of the data contained in this data file is included in a separate file,
  "SAMPLE_CLAIMS_15.TXT".