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Python scripts for disambiguating patent data

The following collection of scripts performs pre- and post-processing on patent data as part of the patent inventor disambiguation process.

Contributing to the Patent Processor Project

Pull requests are welcome. Here are a few pointers which will make everything easier:

  • Small, tightly constrained commits.
  • New files should be in their own commit, and committed before they are used in subsequent commits.
  • Commits should tell a story in a logical sequence. It should be possible to understand the gist of the development just from reading the commits (hard, but worthwhile goal).
  • The ideal commit:
    • Unit (or similar) test for a single functionality.
    • Implementation to pass the unit test.
    • Documentation (the "why") of the function/method in the appropriate location (platform dependent).
    • 0 or 1 use of the new functionality in production.
    • Further uses of functionality should go in future commits.
  • Formatting updates, code cleanup and renaming should go into independent commits.
  • Submit only code which is covered by working unit tests.
  • Testing scripts, including unit tests, integration tests and functional tests go in the test directory.
  • Code which does work goes in the lib directory.
  • Code which provides a workflow (i.e., processing patents or building necessary infrastructure) goes in the top level directory. In the future, much of this code may be put into a bin directory.
  • Test code should follow the pattern test/test_libfile.py. This pattern may change in the future, whence this documentation will change at that time.

Processing patents

preprocess.sh to get started.

Disambiguating

Postprocessing

After disambiguating, the resulting unique inventors are listed by number in an output file (e.g., final.txt). This output file then processed to tie the inventor number to the inventor name in the input database. The program which performs this linking is in the c++ disambiguation code. After the linking is done, verification proceeds.

Verification

Verifying the results of the disambiguation is performed using the benchmark.py script, which compares the linked results database with a (specially formatted) CSV file containing a list of inventor-patent instances which have been verified by direct communication with each inventor.

Contributors