Authors names format in WS responses

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idexlab
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2011 3:05 pm

Authors names format in WS responses

Post by idexlab » Tue Feb 11, 2014 5:19 pm

Hello,

we are using OPS REST with JSON format.

When we get Bibliographic data back, inventors' names are provided as an unstructured string e.g.:
"Doe John, van der Viel Joan" which makes it tricky to decode as First name, LastName pairs.

However the EPO website patent search does provide a structured format as an alternative, e.g.:
"(Doe, John; van der Viel, Joan) " which is much easier to digest.

Does anyone know if and how the structured format can be retrieved through the API ?

thanks & regards,
pierre.


EPO / OPS Support
Posts: 1298
Joined: Thu Feb 22, 2007 5:32 pm

Re: Authors names format in WS responses

Post by EPO / OPS Support » Wed Feb 12, 2014 1:13 pm

Dear user,

This is one example from OPS and it seems quite structured to me. You have to understand that by using OPS you are accessing raw data directly and therefore you are limited with what you can do:
<parties>
<applicants>
<applicant sequence="1" data-format="epodoc">
<applicant-name>
<name>BOER BEHEER NIJMEGEN BV DE [NL]
</name>
</applicant-name>
</applicant>
<applicant sequence="1" data-format="original">
<applicant-name>
<name>BEHEERMAATSCHAPPIJ DE BOER NIJMEGEN B.V</name>
</applicant-name>
</applicant>
</applicants>
<inventors>
<inventor sequence="1" data-format="epodoc">
<inventor-name>
<name>KOSMAN WILHELMUS JACOBUS MARIA [NL]</name>
</inventor-name>
</inventor>
<inventor sequence="1" data-format="original">
<inventor-name>
<name>KOSMAN, WILHELMUS JACOBUS MARIA</name>
</inventor-name>
</inventor>
</inventors>
</parties>
Kind regards,
OPS support


idexlab
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2011 3:05 pm

Re: Authors names format in WS responses

Post by idexlab » Wed Feb 19, 2014 1:26 pm

Thank you, it looks like I missed it in the first place...
regards,
Pierre


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