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2 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: 04/24/2024 - 12:31
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