Non-zero applicant and inventor sequence number

[Rachie]

What does it mean when both the applicant sequence number and the inventor sequence number are greater than zero in the tls207_pers_appln table? I understand a zero in the applicant column indicates an inventor, and a zero in the inventor column indicates an applicant, but there's nothing in the documentation about both being set. There are over 19 million rows like this.

Code: Select all

SELECT * FROM tls207_pers_appln WHERE applt_seq_nr>0 AND invt_seq_nr>0 LIMIT 10;
+-----------+----------+--------------+-------------+
| person_id | appln_id | applt_seq_nr | invt_seq_nr |
+-----------+----------+--------------+-------------+
|        46 | 15709720 |            1 |           1 |
|        46 | 17133605 |            1 |           1 |
|        46 | 17281177 |            1 |           1 |
|        47 | 16967960 |            1 |           1 |
|        47 | 17022710 |            1 |           1 |
|        47 | 17024750 |            1 |           1 |
|        47 | 17080685 |            1 |           1 |
|        47 | 17084155 |            1 |           1 |
|        47 | 17130335 |            1 |           1 |
|        47 | 17134921 |            1 |           1 |
+-----------+----------+--------------+-------------+

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM tls207_pers_appln WHERE applt_seq_nr>0 AND invt_seq_nr>0;
+----------+
| count(*) |
+----------+
| 19002181 |
+----------+

It's a very weird method of distinguishing inventors from applicants. Wouldn't it make more sense to use separate junction tables for inventors and applicants?

[mkracker]

You guessed correctly. If APPLT_SEQ_NR and INVT_SEQ_NR are > 0 in the table TLS207_PERS_APPLN or table TLS227_PERS_PUBLN, then an applicant is also an inventor for that application. As you mentioned, this is quite often the case.

As usual, there are several ways to model data. The PATSTAT model was designed to avoid redundancy wherever sensibly possible. We deliver PATSTAT Raw Data with a suggested data model which - to my knowledge - most user adopt unchanged. Nevertheless, users of PATSTAT Raw Data may change the data model in any way so it best suits their needs.