A61k
Medicinal preparations

A01n
Agrochemicals

C07c to C07k
Organic chemistry (including nucleic acids, steroids and proteins)

C12n to C12q
Microbiology (including biotechnology)

G01n-033
Analysis

Patents are then selected which have defined therapeutic utility, using intellectually-based in-house selection criteria. First and foremost, they must clearly define either an indication or a mechanism of action within the patent. Those patents that fall outside this scope of therapeutic utility are deselected according to applicable terminology such as Cosmetic, Veterinary, Dental, Chemical, Herbal Mixture and Nutriceutical.

Finally the selected patents are checked for duplicate entry records against both our in-house database and INPADOC, and duplicates are rejected. Note that we do not compile families of equivalent patents; the first publication of an invention identified by Current Drugs is the one used to write the IDdb patent report.

We do not cover inventions such as chemical process technology for the synthesis of intermediates that are not then applied towards the synthesis of a specifically named drug. Likewise we do not select gene therapy, combinatorial chemistry or HTS patents which do not mention specific indications. The phrase within a patent 'of potential therapeutic value or biological activity' is too ambiguous to merit inclusion in one of the currently defined therapeutic sections of Patent fast-alert.

Patent fast-alert covers approximately 160 patents per week.

For the optional Current Patents Gazette service, coverage is broader in scope. The Gazette covers patent documents falling within the following sub-classes of the International Patent Classification:

A61k
Medicinal preparations

A61m
Drug delivery devices

C07c to C07k
Organic chemistry (including nucleic acids, steroids and proteins)

C12n to C12q
Microbiology (including biotechnology)

G01n
Analysis

Roughly a quarter of all innovation (approximately 300 inventions each week) falls within these broad categories, and a further intellectual screening process is applied in order to isolate the subset relevant to pharmaceutical discovery and development activity. The de-selection employs IPC, applicant and textual indicators. Items removed at this stage include cosmetics and toiletries, agrochemicals, petrochemicals, polymers, liquid crystals, foods and beverages and general analytical techniques. However, unlike in Patent fast-alert, patents covered by the Gazette are not required to have defined therapeutic utility.

A further 'safety net' is employed in order to ensure that irregularly-classified inventions from major pharmaceutical companies are not accidentally excluded. We use this continuously-updated catch-all strategy to identify unconventional inventions that might otherwise be missed. Principally, this relies on the names of major pharmaceutical companies, but also on generic applicant names and text words. Cutting edge technologies such as combinatorial chemistry, notoriously difficult to classify, are scanned in this way, as are all of the patent applications filed by subscribers to the Gazette.

Current Patents Gazette covers approximately 350 patents per week.