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3 posts
dcooke22
Last seen: 09/18/2018 - 11:16
Joined: 09/18/2018 - 11:09
Latitude and Longitude

I have a question regarding the latitude and longitude of the patent first name inventor variables. I noticed that many patents have the exact same latitude and longitude. How are these determined? Are they based on the centroid of some geography that the patent first name inventor falls into?

Thanks in advance!

Wed, 09/26/2018 - 15:32
PVTeam
Role: moderator
Last seen: 09/10/2024 - 13:29
Joined: 10/17/2017 - 10:47
Re: Response to Question about Latitude and Longitude

Hello,

The city, state, and country values recorded for all inventors and assignees in the patent data are looked up using the Google Maps API and then associated with a single, canonical latitude and longitude for each city. 

As an example: inventors who recorded their locations as “San Francisco, CA” will generally get associated with the exact same latitude and longitude.

The algorithm we use to disambiguate locations will change in the near future, but the association of each city with a single, canonical latitude and longitude will remain the same.

Thank you,

PVTeam

Tue, 09/17/2024 - 12:27
Yijia Wen
Last seen: 09/19/2024 - 15:08
Joined: 03/10/2021 - 11:49
Hello PVTeam,Thank you for…

Hello PVTeam,

Thank you for the information. I have a follow-up question regarding the process used to determine the single, canonical latitude and longitude associated with each city. 

Could you please provide more details on how these coordinates are selected?  Are there specific criteria or rules that guide the selection of the canonical latitude and longitude for each city (e.g., geographic center, population center)?

Your insights into this process would be greatly appreciated, as they will help us understand the underlying methodology behind location standardization in the patent data.

Thank you!

Best regards,
Yijia