Database Searcher
 July-August, 1991
       ORBIT Search Service has announced the addition of Current patents
 databases covering pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and agrochemical patents
 and in-depth evaluations of phamaceutical and biotechnology patents.
       Current patents Ltd.'s staff of research chemists summarize patents
 for therapeutic importance within days of patent publication. ORBIT will
 load Current patents database into two separate files. Current Patents:
 Fast Alert New (CPFN) covers the latest six weeks. Current Patents: Fast
 Alert (CPFA) carries archival data starting with July 1989. The file
 updates weekly with an average 250 basic patent documents.
      The Current patents databases on ORBIT correspond to the weekly
 printed bulletins: Anticancers, Hormonals and Metabolic Disease Therapy,
 Anti-Inflammatories, Anti-Allergics, Respiratory and GI Agents,
 Antimicrobials, CNS Agents, Biotechnology, and Immunology, and
 Agrochemicals.
      European and United Kingdom documents are received the day of
 publication while others, e.g., from the United States, arrive within days.
 All patent references retrieved from the file are available for online
 ordering direct from Current patents' same day document delivery service
 through Orbdoc electronic mail.
      Data-Star also carries Current patent files (CPEV, CPBA, CPBM). ORBIT
 has already loaded the CPFA and CPFN files, but will wait till fall to load
 Current patents: Evaluations. searching Current patents costs
 $62/connect-hour plus $1.90 per full record on CPFA to print subscribers or
 $3.70 for nonsubscribers or $5 for CPFN results.
      Over 15,000 new patent families members have been added to 7,517
 records in the World patents Index/ APIPAT merged file (WPIA, WPLA, WPAM)
 on Orbit.
      Extracted from the American Petroleum Institute's APIPAT file, the
 documents were omitted from WPI or WPIL because Derwent, the producer of
 the World patents Index, did not cover the particular technology or country
 during that time period.
      All the additions carry a dummy update code (9100) and dummy
 publication date (00.00.00). Unfortunately the publication date did not
 appear in the original APIPAT record. ORBIT staff assures us that the new
 records will not disturb date searching in the file. WPIA/WPILA and APIPAT
 have added a new Assigned Term (AT) field to indicate index terms actually
 assigned by the API indexers.
      Broader terms assigned by the computer will continue to fall in the
 IT field along with the AT headings.
      German patent numbers in the European patent Office's Inpadoc
 database, also available on DIALOG (File 345) and STN International, now
 follow an eight-digit numerical format due to EP-granted patents
 designating Germany for EP applications filed after December 31, 1988. Full
 implementation of the new numbering scheme will take to the end of the
 decade, according to EPO. Hungarian Applications also now appear in Inpadoc
 at three publication levels-notification of new level (A0), published
 applications with or without deferred examination A1/A2), and granted
 patents (B).
      The Remote Sensing (RESORS) database from the Canada Centre for
 Remote Sensing has gone online with ORBIT. It provides over 70,000 records
 covering the field from 1972 to the present and constitutes the only
 database restricted to the subject.
      Remote sensing involves techniques to collect images or other forms
 of data about objects from distant measurements and processing and
 analyzing the data.
      Other databases covering the field include Aerospace Database,
 National Technical Information Service, INSPEC. searching costs $84/
 connect-hour plus twenty-five cents per full record displayed online or
 thirty cents printed offline.