PatBase - Combining Patent Families using VantagePoint

The VantagePoint PatBase import filter brings in each publication as a record - in our example, there are 3,349 individual publications (records). The dataset can be analyzed at the level of individual publications, but frequently you want to combine publications into Patent Families for analysis. Doing this with PatBase data in VantagePoint is a one-step process.

VantagePoint's Combine Duplicates tool will merge all of the data from individual publications into a "super record," salvaging all of the data from the individual publications. Combine Duplicates is found under the Tools menu. In Combine Duplicates, the criteria for declaring a duplicate record can be a complex combination of Exact or Fuzzy matches across multiple fields. But PatBase Families can be combined using a simple Exact match on Family Accession Number, as shown in this illustration - after collapsing Patent Families, the 3,349 records become 669.