Redesigning Patent Database
Documentation on the process and eventual designs for the new patent database.
TODO on 3/7/2017
- Continue working on Excel spreadhseet analyzing current schema and new schema design (this spreadsheet can be found under Projects/Redesigning Patent Database/Comparing current schema and new schema)
- Find new online tool for making tables for wiki pages (check)
- Add links to relevant wiki pages to this project page (check)
- Look at Small Inventors project page (check)
| Redesigning Patent Database | |
|---|---|
| Project Information | |
| Project Title | Redesigning Patent Database |
| Owner | Shelby Bice |
| Start Date | 201701 |
| Deadline | 201705 |
| Keywords | Database, Patent |
| Primary Billing | |
| Notes | |
| Has project status | Active |
| Copyright © 2016 edegan.com. All Rights Reserved. | |
Contents
Redesigning Patent Database
- Design a better representation for database
- Fix scripts if necessary
- Start moving data into new database by querying existing databases (using SQL)
- Use scripts to query new data
- Test database
- Remove extraneous information from database (copies, patents that we're not interested in, etc.)
Documentation I need to include:
- Schema of new database (with justification of design), would like to include a visual representation
- SQL commands that were used to fill database with explanation of what they do
- Clear instructions on where to find scripts in bulk drive and an explanation of what each script does
- Visual representation of example table entries that isn't just copied and pasted from a CSV file
Documentation Relevant to Current Patent Database
Other improvements being made on patent database:
Small Inventors Project - uses Fee Status and Citations
Previous documentation on the patent database:
Patent Data - overview of what the data is and where it came from
Patent Database - overview of schema of database
USPTO Assignees Database - enhances assignee info in patent database, also being redesigned
Problems with Patent Database - lists issues with current schema
Previous ER Diagram - does not match up with schema described in Patent Database and contains outdated list of what we want to pull from XML files
Description
The purpose of this project is to create a new, redesigned database to hold all of the patent information that the McNair Center has accumulated and document the process so that the design can be easily understood and replicated or edited as needed.
This database will include design patents, utility patents, and reissues.
Development
Design will be built upon a relational database model. I will be referencing this article on database design as I develop the design (http://en.tekstenuitleg.net/articles/software/database-design-tutorial/one-to-many.html), and I will be creating an ER diagram.
Current Design and Scripts information
The scripts for querying data for the patent database exist in McNair/software/scripts/patent. If the design for the schema of the database tables are altered too much, may have to write new scripts.
Test Plan
Log:
2/16/2017 - Talked over project with Ed, began reading existing wiki pages related to patent data and databases
2/21/2017 - Brushed up on SQL, Entity - Relationship model of designing databases
- In the documentation, I want to briefly explain what the entity-relationship model is before including
the diagram so that readers have a little bit of background
- Found a tool for creating a visual representation called ERDPlus.com - create a standalone instead of an account, can download
Learning commands from Patent Data - SQL Steps
- copy command is PostgreSQL that copies a SQL table to a text file
- DELIMITER set what will separate columns in text file
- HEADER specifies that there will be a header in the text file with the names of the columns
- Definitely need to include more detail about what these do in the documentation
- insert into command inserts a new entry into the table
2/23/2017 - Read great database design article, dug through some more wiki articles, started reviewing Perl
- What client do we use to interact with the current patent database?
- Will need to determine all the fields that need to be included in the database before finishing the design and ER diagram, will need Ed's input
3/2/2017 - Started compiling a list of what fields to include and how they would be related.
- Created an Excel spreadsheet that records the each table, their current attributes in the existing patentdata table, what I think the attributes should be in the new table, their relationship to a patent (i.e. one-to-many, many-to-many, etc.), their primary key, questions I have relating to the table, future steps for cleaning up the data in the table (i.e., once all the data has been move to the new database, removing patents that are not US-based), and current problems that have been recorded with the existing table for that information (if an existing table exists)
- Once Excel spreadsheet is completed (and questions in the Questions column are answered or removed from the spreadsheet entirely) I will look into trying to embed it on my "Redesigning Patent Database" wiki page so that future users can sort of follow my thought process. I will also create separate wiki pages to explain each table once the new database is created
- instructions for adding a table to a wiki page https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Tables
- Making spreadsheet led me to realize there is some data that is repeated (filedate in fee table when it is also located in patent table, and the fee table includes the patent
3/7/2017 - Continued working on spreadsheet, update project page with relevant links, developed following plan for documentation
- Most important thing for new documentation in my opinion is a clear flow, i.e., one central page on the database, which contains links to the following:
- Where data is (patent data) where it came from (Harvard Dataverse, etc), the scripts/SQL used to obtain the data, and where original xml files can be located
- Next, there should be an ER diagram that shows the general design, followed by short descriptions of each table is, what it's related to, and what it's use is
- Each table should contain a link to a separate wiki page on the table which will explain all the columns, where the data came from, provide a visual example of data in the table, list issues, and also contain a log of what has been done to the table over time
- there should also be instructions on the page for how, if someone is going to change the database (add a table, alter a column, etc.) which documentation they should update (the wikipage for the table, for example)
- Links to USPTO Assignee Database with an explanation of how it is joined with the Patent Database
- Lastly, everything should be dated. I know that each wiki-page lists when it was last edited, but the main page, next to table descriptions, should have the date the table was originally added. The ER diagram should be updated as needed and also dated so that readers know if it's the most current representation of the database.
