Understand the Reassignment and how to search

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Prologue
• Introduction
• Types of re-assignments
• How to search into the REAS field?
• How to search into the ACT Legal Status?

Prologue

The former field /OWR has been replaced by the here above /REAS field. All data in OWR is now present in REAS field, and OWR is not more supported.

Introduction

Now each re-assignment action is supplemented with Questel value added field “Transaction type” which will help you identify whether the re-assignment action related to one of the following transaction types. 

Most US patents contain an Inventor reassignment action for each inventor. This creates a number of lines in the reassignment data which can make it difficult to spot subsequent company to company transactions. 

To help you identify key transactions quicker, we have removed these inventor reassignments from the family summary view. If you do want to see these lines you’ll need to go the associated publication view (on left in Family view, or just clicking on a publication stage from the table of publications).

Types of re-assignments

• Inventor - Reassignment from inventor to company (IN)
• Original - First applicant/assignee (CO)
• Individual - Reassignment from company to individual
• Acquisition - Reassignment from one company to another distinct company (C2C)

The type of re-assignment is available into the field REAS, as a sub-field "TTYP" like 

TTYP/REAS=

Where  

• TTYP=IN inventor
• TTYP=CO original company
• TTYP=C2C acquisition

How to search into the REAS field?

Here few examples: 

Patents that were acquired by ANALOG DEVICES (not Original owner):

ANALOG DEVICES/REAS S TTYP/REAS=C2C

Patents for which original owner was LONZA SOLUTIONS, and that were acquired by another company (acquisition date from 2021):

((LONZA SOLUTIONS)/REAS S TTYP/REAS=CO) and (FROM/REAS=2021 S TTYP/REAS=C2C)

Patents for which original owner was ETHICON or that have been acquired by ETHICON until 2021 and have been acquired since by another company (=owner not ETHICON anymore):

(TTYP/REAS=CO S ETHICON/REAS) OR (ETHICON/REAS S TO/REAS=2021 S TTYP/REAS=C2C)
1 AND (FROM/REAS=2021 S TTYP/REAS=C2C)

See more details in our Fampat factsheet p.18

How to search into the ACT Legal Status?

Recommended: Understand the events groups in the Legal status

The group "RAS" regroups all legal events linked to Reassignments available in legal status, like for China CO/ACT=CN/TA01 or for the US US/AS etc.

To search for all the reassignment event codes, use

 EG/ACT=RAS

Examples:

Search for FR patents (national procedure or EP/PCT) having an extension on the term of protection (SPC), and a re-assignment in its life : 

EG/ACT=SPC P (PC/ACT=FR OR CC/ACT=FR) P EG/ACT=RAS

Search for patents that contain a reassignment event and that are currently assigned to HIMPP:

EG/ACT=RAS AND HIMPP/PA

EG/ACT=RAS P (HIMPP/ACT)