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7 posts
rickdeckard91
Last seen: 05/31/2024 - 03:45
Joined: 05/22/2023 - 08:57
inventor_id

Hello,

I am trying to determine whether the inventor_id associated with the file g_inventor_disambiguated truly corresponds to a single inventor. What I mean is that since there are names that clearly appear in more than one patent and in different locations, they may either represent the same person who has migrated or different individuals.

Sometimes, there are different inventor_ids associated with the same names, and sometimes not. To double-check this issue, I found a study by Jaffe et al. https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/YRLSKU where they attempted to understand the ages of different inventors. They uploaded their final dataset to the link I provided. Using their dataset, I attempted to see if there are differences in terms of unique IDs. I tried various names, but I'll post here just "Daniel J. Williams":


The "Patents View" dataset shows 3 different inventor_ids associated with "Daniel J. Williams" and 12 different cities.

The Jaffe dataset shows 6 different IDs, although they were only able to find 3 corresponding birth years.

Finally, I checked on idiyas.com and found 6 instances of "Daniel J. Williams", which is more in line with Jaffe's findings. However, I'm unsure about the trustworthiness of this website.

Therefore, what I am trying to understand is:

Is a single inventor_id associated with a single inventor?
Do I have to use other files to find all single inventor_ids?
Are there unsolvable issues on this matter, making it impossible to find all single inventors?


Would you mind answering these questions?

Thanks,

Rick

Tue, 05/21/2024 - 11:18
fmcetin
Last seen: 05/22/2024 - 10:14
Joined: 05/21/2024 - 09:52
Hello PV team and Rick,I…

Hello PV team and Rick,

I have the same question. I suspect a single inventor can have multiple inventor_id. For instance, for the inventor Benjamin Koltenbah, there is currently four unique inventor_id;  fl:be_ln:koltenbah-1, fl:be_ln:koltenbah-2, fl:be_ln:koltenbah-3 and fl:be_ln:koltenbah-4. I am confident that these inventor_ids are assigned to the same inventor as they all have the same location and assignees. I think disambiguation fails here:

fl:be_ln:koltenbah-1    Benjamin E. C. Koltenbah
fl:be_ln:koltenbah-2    Benjamin E. C. Koltenbah
fl:be_ln:koltenbah-3    Benjamin E. Koltenbah
fl:be_ln:koltenbah-4    Benjamin E. Koltenbah

Best,

Furkan 

 

 

Sat, 09/21/2024 - 15:30
mishaghosh
Last seen: 09/21/2024 - 16:13
Joined: 09/21/2024 - 01:32
Inventor IDs

Hello Furkan,

Yes, you are right.  A single inventor can have multiple inventor ids.  There is one additional one that you have not taken into account Benjamin Emerson Carl Koltenbah.

I have consolidated all this into one inventor "Benjamin Emerson Carl Koltenbah" on my site idiyas.com.  He has 8 patents overall, once you merge the other profiles.

Regards,

Misha

Fri, 11/22/2024 - 10:11
PVTeam
Role: moderator
Last seen: 11/22/2024 - 12:58
Joined: 10/17/2017 - 10:47
Benjamin Koltenbah Cluster

Hello Furkan,

You are correct. The disambiguation is failing to merge the 4 clusters you listed. I have conducted a search for all inventors with name_first starting with “Ben” and name_last starting with “Koltenba” and I got the following g_inventor results. They should all have the same inventor_id, but do not.

mention_id

name_first

name_last

inventor_id

US10107680-1

Benjamin E. C.

Koltenbah

fl:be_ln:koltenbah-3

US10352886-2

Benjamin E.

Koltenbah

fl:be_ln:koltenbah-4

US11220351-1

Benjamin E. C.

Koltenbah

fl:be_ln:koltenbah-2

US7872465-2

Benjamin E.

Koltenbah

fl:be_ln:koltenbah-2

US8153965-1

Benjamin Emerson Carl

Koltenbah

fl:be_ln:koltenbah-4

US9595092-2

Benjamin E. C.

Koltenbah

fl:be_ln:koltenbah-2

US9612161-1

Benjamin E. C.

Koltenbah

fl:be_ln:koltenbah-1

US9728835-3

Benjamin E.

Koltenbah

fl:be_ln:koltenbah-3

Thank you for your engagement. We’ve added this example to our internal error tracker used to evaluate and improve the accuracy of our disambiguation algorithm.

Best,
PVTeam

Sat, 09/21/2024 - 16:10
mishaghosh
Last seen: 09/21/2024 - 16:13
Joined: 09/21/2024 - 01:32
Inventor IDs

Hello Rick,

A single inventor id is not associated with a single inventor.  USPTO has no way of knowing since we are so mobile.  We change companies and we change residences.  One way, I merge profiles is to look at their collaborators and/or their LinkedIn profile.

Regarding trustworthiness of the idiyas.com, Wikipedia leveraged it to find many prolific inventors that it was not able to either. 

In summary, to answer your questions:

Is a single inventor_id associated with a single inventor?  No.  USPTO has no way of knowing if John Smith of San Diego is the same John Smith of Miami.  Middle names pose another problem.
 

Do I have to use other files to find all single inventor_ids? Yes. 


Are there unsolvable issues on this matter, making it impossible to find all single inventors?  It's not impossible if you leverage IDiyas.com. Here's an interesting factoid: Since 1976, there has been ~5.5 MM Inventors with any USPTO patent (utility, design and plant).  If you were to exclude inventors with one or two patents, the base of 5.5 MM shrinks by 70%.

Best regards,

Misha
 

Fri, 11/22/2024 - 10:01
PVTeam
Role: moderator
Last seen: 11/22/2024 - 12:58
Joined: 10/17/2017 - 10:47
inventor_id

Hello Rick,

It’s important to note that the inventor_id provided in g_inventor_disambiguated is not a “ground truth” labeling. In a perfect world, all mentions of a single inventor would be associated with one inventor_id. However, our disambiguation algorithm is not perfect. We frequently make both type I and type II errors. Please see below where we have linked to evaluation documentation.

With regard to the Daniel J. Williams cluster, you are correct in identifying an error. Manually constructing the full cluster is going to take us some time since there are quite a few candidate matches, but we’ve added it to our internal error tracker.

Thank you for your feedback. It helps us document areas where the disambiguation algorithm is making mistakes, enabling better evaluation and improvement.

Best,
PVTeam