Use FSORT (Family SORT) to group patent records from L-number answer sets into patent families. Two patent records are considered members of the same family if any of their patent numbers, application numbers, or priority numbers are the same.
FSORT works in any of the databases included in the PATENTS or HPATENTS cluster.
Example: Find families of patents on perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA; CAS Registry Number 335-67-1) mineralization.
- Enter the appropriate databases and perform your search. The same profile may be used in all the databases, or it may be individualized to take advantage of database-specfic indexing.
(Optional) Remove duplicates and refine your search. - Enter FSORT and the L-number of the answer set to be sorted. FSORT automatically does the following:
- Selects patent (PN) and application numbers (APPS) from each answer.
- Sorts answers into families
- Displays a list of patent families with the corresponding answer numbers.
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View some answers. Enter D PFAM to display only selected answers from the families.
For example, D PFAM=2 IBIB displays the first answer (by default) from the second family in IBIB format.
Solution images are included for illustrative purposes only. Edited for brevity. Your experience may vary based on recent enhancements or product license.