STRUCTURE SEARCHES IN PATENT LITERATURE - A COMPARISON STUDY BETWEEN IDC GREMAS AND DERWENT CHEMICAL CODE

Patent searches by fragment codes in the Derwent WPI/L and IDC GREMAS Files as well as by closed substructures in the CAS Registry and the Derwent WPIM Files are compared. The most relevant answers are found in the IDC GREMAS File; by the Derwent fragment code the IDC result is almost reached. On the contrary, the search results obtained from the CAS Registry File are so incomplete that they are ruled out as an alternative. Derwent WPIM File as a successor to Derwent Chemical Code cannot serve as a replacement for the GREMAS File at the present time because of lack of completeness. Higher costs at IDC GREMAS compared with Derwent WPI/L for database use contrast with lower costs for relevance checking. On the whole, the IDC GREMAS File offers the best cost-benefit ratio for Hoechst AG.