Combining Downloads

Post Reply

willcraig82
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Dec 03, 2020 5:39 pm

Combining Downloads

Post by willcraig82 » Thu Dec 03, 2020 5:53 pm

I am looking to download a companies patents that span 2 years.
In total there are 10 pages of downloads at the 500 limit, so 5000 results.
I was going to run a query for every 3 months then merge them all into a google sheet.
my questions are as follows
Does this result in the same result appearing in two searches when using different date values?

Do all searches result show approved patents only or are the results mixed in with applications and expired patents.

I am trying to get an idea of how many patents a company has submitted in a set time frame, this will be used in an article I am writing.

thanks in advance


Patent Information Marketing
Posts: 358
Joined: Fri Mar 03, 2017 1:16 pm

Re: Combining Downloads

Post by Patent Information Marketing » Fri Dec 04, 2020 5:03 pm

Dear user,

I understand that your result list exceeds 500 results, which is the maximum number of downloadable results in xlsx or csv format, and that you would like to download all results by batches, but avoid the retrieval of duplicates in the process.

Espacenet is a family based tool. This means that the result list does not show all retrieved publications but displays only one of the family members chosen by the system to represent the whole family. Within each family, however, the different family members have different publication dates. Therefore, there is a high risk to inherit duplicates when searching for several date ranges, even if the search ranges themselves are not overlapping. To illustrate this, if we have, for example, a family composed of the family members doc 1 (2010-01-01) and doc 2 (2011-01-01), searching in 2010 will retrieve this family, but searching in 2011 will also retrieve this family.

There is fortunately a way to avoid these duplicates by 1. sorting the result list according to the publication date (actually this corresponds to a sort by the “earliest” publication date found in each family) and 2. working with the filters on family level with earliest family publication date ranges. The steps to follow are the following:

1. Sort the result list according to the publication date (ascending or descending, as wished)
2. Activate the Filters’ section by clicking on the Filters toggle.
3. Below the breadcrumb “Home > Results”, you will find a “Family / Publication” toggle. If not yet activated, click on “Family” on the toggle to activate the filtering on family level.
4. Open the “Earliest publication date (family)” filter.
5. Select a date range at your convenience.
6. Click on apply
7. To export the result list in xlsx or csv format, click on the three dots menu in the result list area.
8. Before repeating the process with another filtered date range, don’t forget to delete the previous filter by clicking on the cross next to it or on “Clear” below the breadcrumb.

With regards to the type of document, which the result list usually displays, unless you specify in your search that you only want to retrieve granted patents from specific countries (e.g. pn=EPB* or pn=USB* or pn=DEB*) or only applications from specific countries (e.g. pn=EPA* or pn=USA* or pn=DEA*), the result list often displays a mixture of applications and granted patents. The list gives, however, no indication whether a patent expired or lapsed.
Kind regards

Patent Information Marketing


Post Reply